Secrets, lies, and red-gold Ties
by EllaBella8185
Summary: When Lily is thrown into the very heart of a Marauders adventure at the end of her fifth year she finds it harder and harder to simply see the arrogant boy she's always known over what her heart, friends, and even Headmaster are telling her James Potter is really made of. Different Marauder's perspectives and sub plots. Rated T suggestive humor.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: Hey there my ****loves! I have been sitting on this story for a VERY long time. The idea first came to me when I was very young and trying to flesh out in my mind who Harry's parents really _were. _In 2009, on a lovely backpacking trip through the U.P., the finite idea for the plot of this story hit me. I have no excuse for why I haven't plucked up the courage to publish until now excepting the fact that I am a semi-perfectionist and have been subtly revising this story every few weeks for the past 4 years. Anyway, I hope that whoever reads this will enjoy and give me feedback! Please reply!**

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_James's POV_

James lay contentedly in his bed smiling up at the crimson canopy above his head. Through the cracks in his curtains he could see pure sunlight glinting off of the water jug. The way the light hit it made it obvious that it was at least a little past noon.

Merlin, he hoped he hadn't missed anything too terribly important. But could anyone really blame him for, finally, after hours and hours of studying for his OWLs, catching some sleep? The most exhausting part of the process by far was hiding the fact that he did in fact, study at all. He had a reputation to uphold, after all.

Wormtail had wanted some help studying for his potions exam (remedial potions were held the day after everyone else finished their fifth year exams), but James wasn't sure he could be bothered. Moony had probably helped him out by now anyway.

He grinned again. He didn't think he could handle having Peter around if it weren't for Moony.

Ahh Wormtail, where would he be if it weren't for Moony? Moony hadn't been an instant Marauder either, James reminded himself. Two whole days passed of James and Sirius thinking he was too quiet and reserved to be a decent mate, before Sirius had been placed next to Remus in a charms class and they had emerged laughing raucously, much to Professor Flitwick's indignation.

James didn't know exactly what had transpired between the two to make Sirius so instantly fond of Remus, but the knowledge that his best mate was on board was good enough for him.

Peter on the other hand, had had no such special connection with his dorm mates. In fact, it was a sheer act of Remus's good heartedness that brought Peter into their circle.

Remus had come to lunch one day with a sniffling Peter in tow. Upon further inquiry, Remus had admitted that he had found Peter crying about it being the fifth week of school and him not having any friends, in the boys bathroom.

It all worked out in the end, however. Most people still didn't understand why Quidditch star Potter, as well as Tall, dark, handsome and cool Sirius Black, and kind, intelligent Remus let fat, stupid and mildly irritating Peter Pettigrew trod around after them. The truth was Moony was too kind to tell him off, Sirius didn't want Moony to be upset with _him_ for hexing Wormtail across the lake and James enjoyed the reverent attention far too much.

James rolled out of bed and winced slightly at the cold of the stone floor. He looked around confusedly for the little floor rug that was usually right next to his bed, beside his slippers. He spotted it lying on the floor beside the four-poster bed next to him. He grabbed his pillow, yanked back Sirius's curtains and whacked him once with it.

Sirius cried out and fell heavily to the floor on top of James's rug.

"Oh thank Merlin!" Sirius gasped grinning up at James from the floor, "If your rug hadn't mysteriously appeared here beside my bed, I could have been seriously injured!"

"Damn, Sirius! Why can't you just get your own bloody rug?"

"Psh!" Sirius scoffed, "Yeah, I'm sure my sainted mother would be overjoyed to send me one," He took on a snobbish cold voice and quoted, "_And if I ever see you again, I'll swear I'll hex your ungrateful, mudblood loving arse to Dover_!" he chuckled darkly, "Ah the love between a mother and her son," He said sarcastically, dropping the accent.

James's stomach twisted with guilt but he made sure not to show it. If there was anything Sirius hated, it was people feeling sorry for him.

"Fine. I guess I know what to get you for your birthday,"

"A rug?! For my seventeenth birthday? No, no, I think you'll decide to get me this out of the kindness of your heart,"

James rolled his eyes but smiled all the same as he offered his best friend a hand and pulled him up off the floor.

"Whatever you say, mate," James said, turning his back to Sirius, "Get dressed, if we hurry we can still make it in time for lunch,"

They ran down the stone steps into the common room where James stopped dead in his tracks, causing Sirius to slam into him.

Lily Evans was sprawled across the hearth-rug finishing up what looked like a History of Magic essay that was due at the beginning of next term.

"Sure you'll have that done in time, Evans?" asked Sirius mockingly.

She looked up, and her face immediately changed from surprise to one of pure loathing.

James remembered the previous day's events with a flash. He'd just been messing with little Snivellus after exams got out, when Lily had come to intervene, which of course, was what he had wanted. James couldn't think of a better way to get her attention, and Merlin had she looked beautiful with her flaming hair whipping around her pale face, her emerald eyes blazing with hatred, or, as James liked to think of it, passion. But hell, had she been angry. Even _after_ Snape had called her _mudblood_ she was still angrier with James. Her little Slytherin, Death Eater friend, who went around cursing muggleborns for sport, had called her that foul name, and she was still angrier with James. And she wondered why he hated her dear Snivellus.

"Sure you got enough sleep?" she returned glancing at the large grandfather clock standing near the portrait hole and startling James out of his memory.

"Well, Miss Evans," James drawled "we needed our rest after some late night… celebration," he flashed her, his trademark cocky grin, while Sirius 'partyboyed' implicatively behind him.

Lily made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat and stood as if to go, and it surprised them when instead of making for the portrait hole she marched right up to them.

"You both talk yourselves up, but I bet you've never done anything but make other people's lives miserable!" she spat.

"I'll have you know," replied Sirius arrogantly over James's shoulder, "that we have done _plenty,_"

"Together? Well how sweet! I had no idea you two were monogamous, but tell me," she paused, "who's on top?"

"We are _not_ gay," James said exasperatedly for what felt like the hundredth time.

"Yeah," Sirius chimed in, "and even if we were, we would _definitely_ not be monogamous,"

Lily rolled her eyes at that last comment while James looked perplexedly over his shoulder at Sirius.

"Hmmm…," Lily replied, "I guess I just find it hard to believe that either of you could find anyone else to sleep with,"

"Oh yeah?" countered James, "Should I start listing names? Liz McDonnell,"

"Slut," Lily provided offhandedly.

"Whoa," Sirius laughed, "stepping out of your comfort zone Evans?" Lily's eyes didn't move from James's.

"Fine!" James said, "Anna Dobrev,"

"Quidditch groupie,"

"What's your point?!"

"My point is," Lily defended, "That they're both so easy that _I _could probably go up to either of them and ask for a shag and they'd do it,"

"Well," James argued back, "That doesn't say much about _their_ character. I think you'll find most people wouldn't deny you, Evans," his eyes narrowed, "But I see what you're saying… I need a challenge…" he edged closer to Lily, but she didn't back down. "What'd you say Evans," James whispered huskily, "you up for it?"

Lily's lip curled and she stalked away from them towards the portrait hole.

"Oh come on now, Evans," James taunted, "stay a while, I like talking about dirty things with you,"

Lily spun around, "Oh yeah? Then how about this? Go wank yourself," Without another word she swung her leg over the small wall into the corridor and disappeared, letting the portrait hole slam shut behind her, much to the annoyance of the Fat Lady.

"Shit," groaned Sirius, "We've missed lunch. Bet the Hag did it on purpose,"

"Not to worry," assured James, in a far better mood even then before, after talking to Lily, "I'm sure the house elves saved us something. We can eat out by the lake,"

"Marvelous, I bet Remus and Wormtail are already out there. Now you can go tell them all about your conversation with Evans and twist it until it sounds like she was coming on to you," he replied as he stepped through the portrait hole and headed in the direction of the kitchens.

"She _was_ coming on to me," James insisted, "Any day now and she'll realize it for herself and stop hanging 'round with Snivellus,"

"Well that last part's already been taken care of, ever since he called her a mud-," James shot daggers at him with his eyes, "well- you know, she's been keeping clear of him,"

James's ears perked up, "Really? But… she didn't even tell him off yesterday!"

"Yeah, well I guess she was still pretty upset over it, Lorelei said she started crying as soon as they got back up to the dormitories, and didn't stop until just before dinner,"

It was bizarre that Lorelei Hartwick, one of Lily Evan's best friends, was also Sirius's… something. Come to think of it James honestly had no idea how to describe Sirius and Lorelei's relationship. They weren't together, or so they adamantly claimed, but they certainly didn't act like your average teenage boy, girl friendship either. In times like this however, it was extremely handy indeed.

"You're kidding," murmured James in disbelief, trotting down a staircase.

"Nope," Sirius replied, in a voice far too chipper and all knowing for James's liking, "What I've learned in all my years of experience with women is that even if it looks like they're not woefully upset over something potentially woefully and dramatically upsetting, they probably still are,"

"Why, thank you for your words of wisdom. I guess I just thought Evans was kind of an exception to that rule,"

"I think she is in most cases. Even if anyone else called her… that, she wouldn't have been too phased, but not only was she sticking up for him, she's always been a good friend, even when they got put in rival houses and everyone expected them to hate each other,"

James stopped dead in his tracks and looked at his friend with a look of concern and complete confusion, "Uhhh, Sirius?" He peered into his eyes as if looking for peculiar dilation, "why are you being so… insightful? Is everything all right?"

"What? Oh! Naw, I'm just quoting Lorelei pretty much word for word,"

"Oh! Had me worried there for a moment,"

When they rounded the last corner to the kitchens they saw a rather paunchy boy scratching at the red apple in a large portrait of a bowl of fruit so aggressively that soon he would tear the canvas.

"Oi, Wormtail!" Sirius shouted out, making the mousey boy jump, nearly out of his skin.

"Oh, thank Merlin, it's you two!" he squeaked out, in relief, "The door is broken! What if they changed the password to get in?!" he asked in terror, his eyes widening to twice they're normal size.

"It's the pear, you idiot!" Sirius reprimanded with disgust, while James, shaking his head pushed past Peter, and tickling the pear which giggled and turned to a doorknob.

"Honestly Wormtail," James said as he pushed through into the massive kitchens, "You've sneaked down here to get food since the moment we taught you how-"

"Biggest mistake of my life," grumbled Sirius.

"-How, exactly, is it that you can't even remember which piece of fruit opens a ruddy door?" asked James, bending down to pat an exuberant house elf affectionately on the head.

"Speaking of your pathetic excuse for a memory," chimed in Sirius, "How did your remedial potions go?"

"Yeah, seriously mate, how many times do they let you retake that class before they just snap your wand in two, tell you that they're very sorry, but they've obviously made an oversight, and you appear to be a squib?'"

"Haha, very funny," Peter grunted as he shoved cakes, offered by the scrambling house elves into his mouth.

While Sirius leaned up against a wall watching Peter, with a look of undisguised repulsion on his face, James leaned down to speak to the closest house elf, "Hello, Thimpy,"

"Mr. Potter sir!" the elf squeaked in excitement, "What mights Thimpy be a doing for young Master Potter, sir?!"

"Well you see," explained James, "Master Black and I were up very late last night fretting about our exams-" James looked behind him to flash a grin at Sirius, "-and we were so tiered that we seem to have slept right through lunch!"

The elf's eyes glistened in sheer joy, "Why Master Potter, sir! Thimpy shall fix you and young Master Black lunch right away, but," Thimpy lowered his voice in conspiratorial tones and beckoned for James to lean closer, "But," Thimpy said glancing over James's shoulder at Peter, who was still stuffing his face, "What of the fat one?"

"Hmm," James mused, "Yes… I believe we better cut him off before he hurts himself… if he comes down here again… and actually manages to let himself in… just… ignore him,"

"Thimpy understands, Mr. Potter, sir!"

James and Sirius strode out of the castle joking and laughing raucously, holding more food than they could ever manage to eat, with Peter scrambling to keep up behind them.

"Afternoon, Remus! Isn't it a lovely day?" James said, beaming, sill reveling in that warm, delicious, end of exams glow. Now he was well rested, well fed, and had already satisfied his Lily Evans fix for the day. Now he could fantasize about her properly, without any exact details, such as the placement of her freckles, getting blurred in his mind.

"Hmm," mused Remus distractedly, not bothering to look up from his book, "rather _late_ in the day…"

"Oh come now, Remus," James chided, reclining back onto the grass and closing his eyes, "It's the first day off exams. No need to leap into action."

"Yes… I don't foresee any leaping in your near future."

"How did you do on your Divination exam?" Sirius asked over James.

"Oh you know…" said Remus, offhandedly, "Probably got an O. With her as a teacher all you have to do is rant on about how you or James here are going to die painful and untimely deaths, and your passing the class in almost guaranteed."

"I wonder what Trelawney would do if either of us _actually _kicked the bucket…," mused Sirius.

James snorted, "Probably drive McGonagall mad, with righteous and all knowing 'I told you so's,'"

"Why can't she either leave or die already?"

"Nearly Headless Nick says she's taught here for over eighty years!" piped in Peter, nearly bouncing in his exuberance over knowing something of seeming importance.

"I think she _is_ leaving soon, Sirius," answered Remus, completely ignoring Peter's previous comment, "but don't get too excited, I hear her granddaughter is interested in the job and alike to her in both talent and personality."

"Merlin, Moony! How is it that you came to know so much about dear Professor Trelawney's personal life?"

"I agree," chimed in James, "it seems suspicious at best, Moony, old boy."

"And to think, I thought you were doing better in that class than James and I because of your work ethic!"

"The shame, Remus!"

"What would your mother think?"

"For Merlin's sake! I am _not_ sleeping with the Divination Professor!" Remus snapped, loudly enough to startle a group of second years into looking up at him, and then dissolving into a fit of giggles.

"Brilliant!" Sirius guffawed, "they'll have the story 'round the castle by dinner."

"Wonderful," Remus chuckled in a pained sort of way, "just what I need. Maybe now a girl will actually come with me to the end of year party if they hear that I'm sexually experienced."

James and Sirius stared blankly at Remus for a moment before he spoke again, "Oh! I forgot to tell you two, Dumbledore just told us all at lunch that there's going to be some sort of end of term party for everyone in fifth year and over.

James found himself detaching himself from his friends' conversation and fantasized about himself dancing around the great hall with Lily… preferably in rather revealing and tight fitting dress robes…

"James?" said Sirius in an amused tone, while Remus grinned and Peter snickered in the background.

"Hmm?"

"And who are _you_ going to ask, James?" asked Remus in a voice of mock puzzlement.

"What? Were supposed to have bloody _dates? _I thought the purpose of this was to relieve stress. And anyway, I think Evans's really starting to see things my way."

"Hmm… as wonderful as that sounds… I'm putting my money on consistency. Why in hell would Lily start liking you now?" Sirius pointed out blandly while smiling invitingly at a group of giggling girls sitting close by.

"Because!" James said, as though it were obvious, "I defended her honor! Women _dig_ that."

"Hmm," pondered Remus thoughtfully, "It didn't really seem that she was _'digging it'_ before… but who am I to talk! Girls I'm perfectly friendly with come up and slap _me_ across the face all the time!"

"Really?" asked Peter, looking surprised.

Remus sighed exasperatedly, "No, Wormtail. That is what we would call sarcasm."

Peter's face flushed slightly and he settled himself back into the shade.

"Sorry mate," said Sirius, "I'm going to have to agree with Moony on this one. She ruddy hates you."

"Thank you- Padfoot," James said coldly, in clipped tones

"Just saying, mate." Responded Sirius comfortably.

"Well, if you'll excuse me," said James grumpily, standing up and brushing off his trousers, "I need to go formulate a plan."

Sirius and Remus watched in amusement as James walked huffily back up to the castle running his fingers through his hair, as was his habit.

"So," Sirius asked, turning to Remus, "When is this?"

"Uhhh," Remus muttered, marking his page and setting down his book as he thought, "well it must be in the next week or so, before we go home. I think Dumbledore's scheduled a Hogsmeade trip for Saturday so we can get dress robes and everything."

"Dress robes? What the hell for? This sounds like the worst bloody 'party' I've ever been invited too. Why Is so bloody formal?"

Remus shrugged, "I think it was the Heads' idea,"

"And by that you mean the Head _Girl's _idea," Sirius scoffed, "Well that settles it,"

"Settles what?"

"We have to set up a prank"

"Sirius, don't be ridiculous, _James_ wouldn't even want to mess this up, he's too bent on impressing Lily,"

"Fine," Sirius said disappointment clear on his face.

Suddenly, it brightened, "We'll just get the houselves to slip some 'Ogden's' in the drinks! Nothing too destructive!" He added after seeing Remus's stern look, "Just enough to keep it interesting!"

"Well all right, I suppose it's safer than anything else you'd think of,"

"That's the spirit, Moony!" said Sirius, clapping him on the back and standing up, "Well, I'm going to go ask Lorelei who I should ask to this thing."

Remus sighed exasperatedly, "Why don't you just ask _her_?"

"Psh," Exclaimed Sirius, "she'd laugh, think I was kidding and then say no anyway,"

Remus cocked an eyebrow.

"Not that I want to go with her or anything," Sirius said quickly before Remus could get the wrong idea.

"Right," Remus said, nodding sarcastically.

"Well, off I go."

"See, you," Remus chuckled as Sirius jogged back up to the castle.

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**AN:** **Well, what did you guys think? I don't even know if people read fanfiction anymore! They had better, because it's the best community for nerdy writers on the planet!**


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Hey everybody! Thank you so much for adding me to your alert lists, I really appreciate it! This is a pretty one, but I wanted to ****update, so here you are! **

_Remus's POV_

Remus sat back against the tree after Sirius disappeared into to Great Hall and smiled to himself. If it hadn't been for Sirius, Remus mightn't be so happy here at Hogwarts, for it was he, after all, that taught Remus how to truly be himself and not despise himself for it.

It had been their second Charms lesson and apparently, somewhere in the previous 48 hours, their little professor, Flitwick, had wised up to the nature of first years and made a seating chart for them. Although it was indisputably mainly two boys' fault for getting themselves separated in the first place, they also seemed to be doing the most moaning about the injustice of it all.

One of the boys, who was in Remus's house, upon being directed to sit up in the 4th row, beside Remus, grimaced theatrically at his friend before dragged his feet up the aisle between the tables and flopped unenthusiastically into his new seat and sighed loudly, not even looking in his new table partner's direction.

Remus, seeing that the dark haired boy next to him did not plan on instigating a conversation, let alone bothering to pretend that he didn't mind sitting next to him, turned to Flitwick to hide his discomfort.

"Today, class," Flitwick chirped happily, "we will be continuing our work on levitation charms. So if you please, take out your wands and come get a feather to share between your table partner and yourself!"

"I'll get it, Remus mumbled before Sirius could move, walking swiftly up to retrieve their feather. When he returned to his seat, his partner was at least now looking at him and waiting patiently.

"So," Remus's partner said smoothly, his upper class status evident in his accent, "would you like to go first?"

"Uhh, no, no you go,"

"All right then," the boy said, sounding bored. He swished his wand in a quick and precise succession of movements. The feather flew into the air. Remus was stunned.

"Wow!" Remus gushed, all traces of his shy nature evaporating momentarily, "Have you preformed that spell before? It was astounding!" Before flushing at his outburst and looking down at the table again.

"Thanks," said the boy sounding surprised at the praise, "my dad always said I was rubbish at it,"

"Your dad let you practice magic outside of school?" Remus asked is surprise.

The boy's eyes grew wide, "You can't tell anybody!" he hissed, trying to sound fierce but coming off as rather frantic, "If my father found out I'd told anyone, he'd be furious!"

Remus wasn't sure if he'd imagined it or not, but he could have sworn he saw a genuine fear, that no child should have while talking about there father, in his silver eyes.

"Hey," Remus said, trying to calm the boy down, "I can understand secrets. I'm not going to go blab to the whole castle,"

The boy looked at Remus, as though sizing him up, before murmuring, "thank you," and looking at their feather, which had drifted back to the table top in the boy's negligence.

"What was your name again? Sirius, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, and you?"

"Remus,"

"Well Remus, judging by the aneurism Flitwick's having now, I don't need to practice much more," the boy said, flashing him a grin, "you have a go,"

Remus looked up. Professor Flitwick did, in fact, look like he was about to pass out in sheer ecstasy over Sirius's Spellman-ship.

Remus snorted back a laugh before pulling out his wand and waving it over the feather. It twitched.

"Come on now, mate," Sirius said, making Remus blush, due to the casual usage of the term 'mate', "from what I gather, this is your first time doing this spell. Concentrate!"

Remus thought that was a little rich coming from someone who had, almost lazily, gotten the feather into the air on his first try, but he didn't say this. Instead, he obediently squared himself to the feather and concentrated with all of his might on the feather lifting off the table.

The next thing Remus knew, the feather zoomed upwards at breakneck speeds, plastering itself to the ceiling.

Remus was so surprised that he was only slightly aware of the loud whooping coming from Sirius.

Remus was broken out of his shocked stupor when Sirius clapped him on the back with quite a lot of enthusiasm.

"That was brilliant, mate!" Sirius congratulated, beaming.

Remus couldn't help but smile as well. Not because Flitwick had just awarded fifty points to Gryffindor, between Sirius and himself, or because he had just preformed his first bit of intentional magic. He was smiling because he had just made a friend at Hogwarts. He, Remus, had found a lifelong friendship in Sirius Black.

**AN: Well what did you think? I know it was really short but I'll have a longer one out soon. PLEASE REVIEW! IT WOULD MAKE ME SOOOOOOOO HAPPY!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey everyone! Can I just say How very sorry I am for how absurdly long this took! I live out in the middle of nowhere in Wisconsin and our internet connection is iffy at best so for the past few weeks my browser has been registering fanfiction as an "unsecured network" :( Well anyway, It"s here now, so let me know if you like it! There a new character introduced. **

_Sirius's POV_

Sirius loped easily up the stairs, skipping two at a time and compiling a list of all the likely places Lorelei could be. His first guess was the common room.

As he walked swiftly down another corridor he started thinking about what Remus had said. He supposed that he understood why so many people were baffled by Lorelei and his relationship. After all, he was best known for dating a girl and then completely ignoring her until he wanted something from her.

Then, in contrast, he could often be found in the common room leaning against the legs of, curled up on a chair with, giving a massage too, and being given relationship advice by Lorelei; a girl he had never dated, and insisted he didn't intend to.

Then again, she wasn't like normal girls. He sometimes thought that she might know him even better than James did. That wasn't James's fault though. No self respecting man looks after the emotional wellbeing of another man as well as Lorelei did.

And as he constantly reminded a skeptical Remus, as well as himself, he didn't fancy her. Really.

"Oi, Sirius," A female voice said, from near to the floor, "moving a little fast are we?"

Sirius's heart leaped at the sound of her voice, a smile springing involuntarily onto his face, as he looked round to see Lorelei casually sitting on the ledge of a window with a book.

"Pardon?" Sirius chuckled, taking her hand and pulling her to her feet.

Lorelei sighed and shook her head in self disgust, "It was a pathetic excuse for innuendo. You caught me off guard,"

Sirius laughed again, holding out a hand to take her bag but she grasped his hand instead and started walking again.

It wasn't an odd thing for them to do, really. People didn't even stop to whisper anymore. Lorelei would get the odd jealous stare every now and again which she found truly hilarious.

Once, when she caught Samantha Bulstrode in full sneer, she had shouted out, "Oh yeah, we're fucking!" and then had thrown her head back and laughed.

Sirius chuckled to himself at the memory. Lorelei looked up with her eyebrows raised in question. He shook his head and said, "Just remembering… never mind,"

She looked up at him and smiled amusedly.

"Where were you going anyway?" she asked.

"Oh," he said, remembering, "I was just coming to find you actually," he explained, "I thought you might be in the common room. Speaking of which, why were you hanging 'round on a window ledge?"

She surprised him by looking guilty, "Oh, you know… Lily's just fuming about James, again. That's all,"

Sirius looked at her skeptically, not buying it for a second, "Oh yeah? Then why do you look so guilty?" he said, lightly hip-checking her to the right.

"Because," she groaned in defeat, "she's not _actually _upset about James," she exclaimed as though it were obvious.

"Oh?" Sirius asked, doubt evident in his voice.

"Yes," She said confidently, "she's really just upset that everything that James ever told her about Severus-"

"Don't call him-"

"Fine! _Snape. _She's really just upset that everything that James ever told her about _Snape _is true, and I should have stayed and let her rant at me until she realized it for herself. There. It's my fault your best friend is miserable!"

"You're barking!" Sirius laughed, "You do realize this is Lily Evans we're talking about? She wouldn't acknowledge to herself that James Potter was right about something if it cured lycanthropy,"

"I know," she said gloomily, "Just sucks a lot for him, that's all,"

Sirius let out one of his barking laughs, "It's not like she'll love James if she realizes she's angry with Snape," he rationalized.

"True," she conceded, "but maybe if Lily wasn't in a rage at James all of the time they'd… they'd…"

She was still struggling to express what she was thinking when they reached the Fat Lady.

"Cuniculus Adiectio!" Said Sirius, not breaking stride.

"I've got it," announced Lorelei, climbing through the portrait hole after Sirius, "If Lily would simmer down, I don't think James would be so damn irritating all the time,"

"Excuse me?" came James's voice from an overstuffed armchair.

"I love you dearly, James," Lorelei tossed, offhandedly, over her shoulder in his general direction before continuing on in softer tones.

"And if James wasn't so damn irritating, Lily would have time to learn about his other qualities, they'd fall madly in love and make little Lily and James Potters which I could then care for and condition to hate Slytherins," she concluded happily.

"Is Evans going to know about that last bit?"

"Don't be ridicuous,"

"In that case, good plan," praised Sirius, nodding conspiratorially as they walked over to an armchair next to the one James was slouched in, looking depressed.

"Oh," Sirius cooed, condescendingly, "Did mean little Lorelei hurt Jamsy Wamsy's feelings?"

"Shove off, Pads," James groaned, "I'm not in the mood,"

"What's wrong?" Lorelei asked, situating herself beside Sirius to get a better look at James, "you were fine earlier, off to conquer the world and such,"

"I don't really want to talk about it," he muttered quietly.

"James," Lorelei said, at a matching volume, a small frown on her brow, "this isn't like you. Won't you tell me what happened?"

"It's just Lily again," James said, looking abashedly down at his lap.

Sirius opened his mouth to say something, but Lorelei squeezed his leg lightly; a gentle, but crystal clear signal to shut the hell up.

"And?" Lorelei prompted.

"And she's… she's… very… upset," James finished in a voice barely audible.

Now Sirius leaned in, a frown of confusion on his face, "But, that doesn't usually bother you. What about all of that, 'It's just her way of expressing her passion,' nonsense you're always going on about?"

"Not like this," James croaked, "I've… she's never been like this before. She wasn't shouting she was... _screaming_ and… and," he swallowed, "she was crying while she was doing it. I've never made her cry before," he said, looking rather close to tearing up himself, "and, I don't even know what I did! I just walked through the portrait hole and she was on me!" He dropped his face into his hands.

Lorelei stood up and sat down instead next to James on the overstuffed chair. She laid a comforting hand on his knee before saying, "You didn't do anything wrong, James," she assured him, "she was upset, but not really with you,"

James snorted.

"No, really! She just saw you and lost it, that's all. She's had a rather hard week, you know,"

"Yeah, I suppose you're right," James said, standing up and not sounding like he believed it at all, "I think I'm going to take a bit of a kip," Keeping his eyes trained on the floor he made his way to the boys' staircase, and disappeared up them.

"Merlin," muttered Sirius looking at Lorelei, still sitting on the couch where James had sat, "I've never seen her get to him like this. He's an arrogant git at times, who can't accept defeat for the life of him, but truth be told, that's what I like about him. I don't _like_ this!"

"I know," she said sadly, "It's like in the last two years, James had become her emotional punching bag and he doesn't realize it yet," she thought for a moment, "I think I'm going to go talk to her," she sighed at last, "I just hope she's passed the throwing things phase of her anger,"

After smiling at Sirius and squeezing his hand, she made her way to the girls' staircase.

It was only after she was gone that Sirius realized he had forgotten to ask her about the very reason he had come looking for her in the first place.


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: Hey everyone! I hope you have all had a good week! It was Homecoming Week for me, so I hope you don't mind if I congratulate myself just a little on still managing to update anyway:) Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter, and please. PLEASE review! I love writing sooo much but I would also like to hear how you're all liking the story and even where you'd like it to go. **

_Lily's POV_

Lily paced past the five beds in the fifth year girls dormitory. There were pictures of the friends and families of her dorm mates, as well as several shirtless wizards in poster form, plastered to the walls above the beds, all with little faces inclined towards her, watching her warily as she paced.

Lily's fingers were itching to throw something, but by now most of the dorm's contents was already strewn about the room. Throwing the same thing twice just never had the same sense of release for Lily.

Instead, Lily flung herself down on her bed, the air temporarily leaving her chest from the impact. She spit a stay strand of her dark, red hair out of her mouth irritably before rolling over and burying her face into her pillow.

Although she was furious (oh yes, she was furious), more than anything, she just wished the incident with Potter down in the common room hadn't even happened.

She hadn't even felt better afterwards, the way she so often did after telling Potter off. It didn't help that he had just stood there and taken it with a look of dumb shock on his usually pompous face.

"_Well_," the infuriatingly sensible voice in her head tried to argue, _"You did start screaming at him before he even had two feet in the room. You also didn't leave too much time for him to argue back before you burst into hysterical sobs, either, you nitwit,"_

Lily cursed the small voice but restrained herself from formulating a retort to the voice's argument. Or rather… her argument?

After some thought, Lily came to the conclusion that the voice could not possibly be herself for, there was no possible way that _any_ element of her psyche could harbor feelings of compassionate empathy for James Potter. He was simply too unbearable for her to harbor humane feelings towards. There was no _other_ part of her, besides the voice, that suggested she didn't loathe him, after all.

Well, that is other than the slight fluttering she would occasionally get when she would catch him looking at her in the great hall or in the common room. Instead of leering at her and showing off to his friends he would flush in embarrassment and look down again, but she noticed that he kept sneaking glances whenever he didn't think she or his friends were looking …

"_The fluttering is probably an after effect of the nausea you experience whenever he's around you,"_ Lily though to herself, acidly, cutting off her treacherous train of thought for what felt like the hundredth time.

And then, to make matters worse, she had started crying. Well that was an understatement really… sobbing would be more appropriate. Potter probably thought she was both a complete moron, and also an emotionally unstable, ninny.

Not that she cared what James Potter thought about her.

Lily groaned and rolled over onto her back again, glaring frustratedly up at the ceiling, still trying to puzzle through why she had started blubbering in the first place.

Just as Lily was deciding to get up and start throwing things again, a girl poked her head around the door carefully, with the air of a veteran in battle, ready to face the worst of Lily's anger. Her long sheen of shiny black hair cascaded ethereally over her shoulder like water made solid, invoking a begrudged twinge of familiar envy in Lily.

"Lily?" the girl called out warily as she approached Lily's bed. She saw Lily lying there, and sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Hello, Lorelei" Lily said, resigned to the conversation that was sure to follow.

"So," Lorelei began, "I, uh… heard you and James had a… bit of a run-in"

"Why, aren't you informed? Been cozying up with enemy, have you?" Lily spat halfheartedly. It was difficult for her to retain the same level of venom when it was so obvious that Lorelei was just barely holding back a grin.

"Yes!" she sighed theatrically, flopping down onto the bed next to Lily, "Yes, I have! Please Lily my dear, my sweet! Won't you ever forgive me for not despising James Potter as much as you claim to?"

"Claim to?" Lily screeched, making Lorelei laugh, "I have never despised a human being more than James Potter. I absolutely, and indisputably _loath_ him!"

Lily had sprung up while shouting and was now back to pacing about the dormitory. Lorelei sat up on the bed and tucked her legs beneath her, all the while with an amused smirk across her face.

"Don't you smirk at me like that!" Lily snapped, losing her temper at Lorelei's cool amusement. One thing that had instantly endeared Lorelei to Lily was that she was by no means easily intimidated, and cowed her opinions to no one, but, in situations like these, Lily would appreciate it if Lorelei would at least pretend like she was on her side.

"I'm not smirking!" Lorelei denied, her smile stretching wider across her face, "I just find it amusing how quickly you can work yourself into a huff and how second nature it is for you to blame the discomfort on James,"

"Damn it, Lorelei! What kind of best friend are you?

"Oh, I don't know… maybe you should go ask the enemy."

"Gah!"

"Ok, Ok, I'm sorry!" Lorelei laughed, pulling at Lily's elbow until she reluctantly crawled back onto the bed, "So tell me," Lorelei said, with just a slight twinkle of amusement behind her eyes, "what exactly did that scum ball, James Potter, do?"

"Well..." Lily trailed off. What exactly _had _James done? It was what Lily had been trying to figure out for the past half hour, and still she had no answer. "Well… he… he… was awful to Severus yesterday! Why are you so blind when it comes to James and Sirius?"

After Lorelei shot Lily a look that would have made a lesser witch whimper, she said, "Yes, I am _perfectly_ aware of how terrible they were yesterday. Now, what did James do to make you scream at him like a mad woman _today_?"

Lily, under Lorelei's penetrating stare, felt her shoulders slump in defeat, "I don't know," she almost croaked, leaning into Lorelei, "I was sitting around in the common room thinking about what… well… what Severus said to me and… then _he_ came in…"

"And? Did he say anything to you?" Lorelei coxed, after Lily stopped speaking for a moment.

"No," she whispered, "he came in and I suddenly wasn't upset, I just wanted to pound him senseless!"

"Well, I suppose it was good of you to suppress that," Lorelei commented supportively.

"Thank you, I try," Lily said miserably.

"Oh, Lily!" Lorelei sighed. Lily wasn't sure if she imagined it, but it sounded as if there was a hint of frustration in her voice.

Lily continued to sit there, on the bed with her friend for a few moments before Lorelei spoke again, "Will you tell me what you were thinking about Severus, before James came in?"

Lily winced. She had been hoping that she could steer clear of this subject; it was a painful one.

"I don't really want to talk about it," Lily hedged. With almost anyone else, this tactic would have worked, however, Lily knew that Lorelei was no ordinary person.

"That's unfortunate," Lorelei responded, little to Lily's surprise.

Lily looked up at Lorelei with an expression that slightly resembled a 'puppy dog face' in the hopes that she would experience an uncharacteristic softening of the heart and let the subject drop.

Instead, Lorelei jabbed Lily hard in the ribs and said, "You know you're terrible at that. I suggest you stop trying, and spill about what's _really _bothering you, already,"

"I've already told you!" Lily said, her stomach lurching, "It's just Potter again. He-"

Lily was cut of by another painful jab in the ribs.

"Lies!" Lorelei hissed, "Now, if you're ready to be sensible and tell me about Severus, I'll stop inflicting pain on you! Well, Lily?"

Lily shot daggers at Lorelei with her eyes, but nodded. Lorelei lowered her hand from its threatening position triumphantly, and nodded.

"Well," Lily began, reluctantly, "I… _suppose _a _little _of my anger could have been… misdirected,"

Lily heard a snort of laughter and when she looked up, Lorelei was trying to pull her features back into a look of composure.

Lily smacked her lightly, before continuing, "I was… _am_ a little upset with Severus," Lily licked her lips and looked up at Lorelei who was nodding patiently, "and… I probably… escalated the situation with Potter past where it needed to go,"

"Why do you always make it sound like that, Lily?"

"Like what?" Lily asked, perplexed.

"Like you're somehow in charge of reprimanding James Potter for his shortcomings,"

"Well someone's bloody got to!" Lily shrieked, "The rest of the bloody school is too smitten with his Quidditch star ar-"

"Alright, alright!" Lorelei laughing, "never mind. Please continue,"

"Where was I again?"

"Escalating the situation,"

"Right, thank you. As I was saying…" Lily continued, slightly less reluctant to talk now, "I'm assuming the conclusion you want from me is that I'm not in fact angry with Potter, but Severus?"

"Yay!" Lorelei congratulated, clapping before throwing her arms around a sighing Lily, "I knew we'd get there in the end!"

Lily shook her off, "But that's not true! I am angry with Potter! How could I not be, after how horrible he was to Sev yesterday?"

"Don't call him 'Sev' right now!" Lorelei scolded, "You know full well that he isn't a ruddy angel, and if you say that he is, I'd more disappointed in you than I ever have been in another person," she said, without a hint of teasing in her tone.

Lily knew that Lorelei was right, of course, but that didn't mean she had to back down, "Well you certainly act like _Potter_ is faultless! I don't see how you can judge me!"

"I've never said," she smiled slightly, "nor _will_ I ever say, that James is faultless. He teases people mercilessly- and I _know_ that's terrible, really I do. But Lily," Lorelei stopped and grabbed Lily's hand, "that's partially because he doesn't know how else to get your attention, and more importantly, he's going to grow out of that. I know he will."

Lily looked at Lorelei with doubt evident on her face, but Lorelei continued anyway, "Here's the thing, Lily," she said, now looking nervous and uncomfortable, "James, Sirius, and Remus… well they caught Severus doing something…and well…"

This perked Lily's interest more than anything Lorelei had said so far, "What? What did they catch him doing, Lorelei?"

Lorelei looked at her directly now, with sadness on her face, "Lily… they caught him torturing Kristen O'Neil, you know, the first year Remus tutors in Charms and who's… muggle born… down in the dungeons a couple nights ago. That's why they've been at each other's throats so much lately and why Remus didn't say anything when they starting having a go at Snape."

Lily stood up slowly, very shaken. She had known that Severus had been hanging round with some truly terrible people lately who had been known to do much the same to younger students, but she had always thought that Severus hadn't been a part of it. Especially because _she _was muggle born.

"Lorelei, why didn't you tell me before?" she said, her voice barely audible.

"I didn't know until after they had come up from the lake," she admitted, "I was furious. As soon as Sirius was back in the common room I dragged him out again and started shouting at him," she looked rather ashamed, "I didn't even let him tell me what happened before I jumped on him. I hate when he goes and does things like that. Usually it's payback and that doesn't bother me so much, but… when I heard that he and James just went after Snape, I was so angry.

" After I had shouted at him for at least five minutes, he told me what had happened down by the dungeons…" she definitely looked ashamed now, "he looked so sad… that I had believed he would do something like that for no reason. I went and asked Remus later and when he told me that it was all true… I felt so terrible," She ran a hand over her face, "I'm such a hypocrite, always telling him to see the best in people, and then immediately assuming the worst in him," She shook her head in self disgust, "Somehow he forgave me. He _always _forgives me, even when I'm being the most intolerable, self righteous git. I don't even know how he puts up with me, constantly up on my bloody soap box,"

Lily snorted, "I think the better question is how you manage to put up with him being such a self obsessed moron all of the time,"

Lorelei shot her a look, "Don't be thick, Lily. I happen to _know _you're not an idiot, therefor you must realize _why_ he acts so confident,"

"And why is that?"

Lorelei rolled her eyes, exaggeratedly, "Maybe because he's _not,_" She said, dragging out the last syllable.

"What? How on earth did you come to that conclusion? Black acts a certain way so therefor he is actually the opposite? You sound even more ridiculous than usual."

"Think about it!" Lorelei insisted, "What does Sirius Black actually have to be proud of?"

"Well let's see," Lily said in mock puzzlement, "He's wealthy, is a member of one of the most powerful wizarding families in Europe, in exceptionally talented without trying, is incredibly good looking-"

"You see, now?"

"Uhh... no?"

"Wealth and power? He never even _talks _about that. Those both come from the family that he _hates _being a part of! He spends every day trying to make people forget where he comes from,"

"What about the rest of it then? It certainly doesn't seem like he's trying to make everybody forget his looks and talent when he's waving it around in everyone's faces,"

"Lily," Lorelei said, slightly exasperatedly, "Think for a minute about where he grew up. I know you're not an expert or anything, but you know enough to look past the surface! His parents, even _before _he was placed in Gryffindor weren't what you'd call cuddly. When your parents were telling you that everything you drew or made for them was perfect, Sirius was being beaten by his father for not being good enough at magic he shouldn't have been exposed to for another four years. While your dad held onto the back of your bike while you were learning to ride, Sirius's father was intentionally making him fall off his broom to teach him a lesson, in the importance of _not ever failing_,"

"All right, all right," Lily said, feeling thoroughly uncomfortable by now, "What's your point?"

"My point is that, up until Sirius go to Hogwarts, there weren't a lot of compliments heading his way. When he got here, he found out that compared to the rest of the students he i_s _intelligent, he _is _funny, and most girls here _do _think he's good enough. How could resist that?"

"Fine!" Lily interjected, finally. Although she would never admit it, Lorelei did have a way of putting things in perspective. When Lily thought back on her own practically perfect childhood, it became much harder to justifiably judge Sirius Black for his shortcomings. "Fine, I see what you're saying. Just because there's a reason he is the way he is doesn't mean that he's ay easier to be around,"

"It does though," she said, a small smile playing around her lips. "As a matter of fact, being around him is one of the easiest things in the world.

Dear Merlin… and Lorelei thought _she_ was in denial…

"Never mind," Lily said wearily sitting down on her bead again. The small distraction of their side conversation had only lasted as long as it's duration. With a rush, everything that Lorelei had just said about Severus came back to her. Every organ in her torso seemed to weigh substantially more than it had moments ago, and would soon sink down through her toes.

"I was already prepared to never talk to him again… and now…" Lily trailed off, her voice wavering.

Lorelei scooted closer to Lily and gave her arm a squeeze, "I'm so sorry Lils," she said, truly sounding it, "I know how close you two used to be,"

"He isn't the Severus I knew, anymore," Lily said, sadly, "Lorelei… I'm not a very forgiving person… I don't think I'll ever let this go,"

Lorelei was silent for a moment before she responded, "Lils, I _am _a very forgiving person and I honestly don't think I could ever forgive someone for torturing a little girl just because her parents don't know how to greet a hippogriff, or mix a sleeping draught"

Lorelei's voice was dark with anger, and Lily felt quite sure that Lorelei didn't fault her for a lack of forgivingness.

"Well put. Thank you Lorelei," Lily said quietly looking towards the door. She stood up and started walking towards it.

"Lils…?" Lorelei asked warily, "Where are you going?

Lily stopped with her hand on the doorknob and sighed, dreading what she knew she had to do, "I'm going to go talk to Potter,"

**AN: Well there you go! Sorry is you're Snape fans but... I'm not. I pity him, but I don't like his and I ****somehow think that becoming a genocidal terrorist trumps schoolyard bullying in the scheme of things. Anyway! Some Lily and James action next chapter, Woohoo! **

**I write a response to EVERY review so please drop me some love! (Or hate... I'm not picky...)**


	5. Chapter 5

AN:** Hey! I've got a nice long chapter for you guys today! I hope you all had a wonderful week and it would make mine one billion times better if you would all REVIEW! Anyway, there's some nice Lily and James progression in this chapter... tell me how you like it! Or don't like it... WHATEVER!**

_James's POV_

James sat in his dormitory with the curtains of his four poster bed drawn around him, revisiting the fight with Lily, in his head, over and over again.

_James had been coming up to the Gryffindor Tower, fully intending to sit down in his favorite arm chair and think of 30 different ways to get Lily Evans to talk to him. Most of these ideas, he knew, were ones that most girls would swoon over and Lily would hate._

_ James had been so engrossed in his thoughts that he hadn't even noticed Lily was shouting at him until a pillow had made contact with the side of his head._

_ He had whipped around in surprise, to see Lily standing, with her hands on her hips and with swollen eyes. _

_ Despite the fact that he had just been attacked by her, he was instantly filled with concern and started towards her, unsure what he would do when he got there._

_ He was saved the trouble of figuring it out however, because just then Lily screamed out, "Stay where you are Potter!"_

_ James froze, unsure what to do. This was _so_ wildly unlike their usual brawls. Lily didn't look angry; she looked incensed. _

_ "Why do you have to ruin everything you touch Potter? What could have __**possibly**__ made you such a spoiled-" she paused, as if to let the insult hurt more, "worthless-" she paused again, "most horrific disfigurement to the human population there ever was or ever will be?"_

_ She was crying now, the tears streaking down her usually composed face, and although what she was said stung, the real horror that kept running through James's mind was that _he_ had caused this. _He_ had made Lily Evans cry._

_ Lily seemed to see the expression of pain behind James's eyes, and hers widened in surprise._

_ "Evans…" he said quietly, his voice breaking, to his perfuse embarrassment._

_ He took another step towards her, but it seemed that she couldn't even stand to look at him anymore because she turned on her heel and ran up the girls' staircase, to her dormitory. _

_ James looked around after a few seconds of staring blankly at where Lily had disappeared, and noticed for the first time, that there was a small queue of students craning their necks to see if there was any more action to be gotten from James._

_ James, doing the most dignified thing he could think of, walked over to an empty sofa and sat. _

That had been where Sirius and Lorelei had found him_. _They had come through the portrait hole laughing and joking and actually _holding hands_. Not that this was out of the ordinary for them, but honestly, how were they still surprised when people asked if they were together?

They had then proceeded over to where James had been sitting after he snapped at Lorelei.

Everything Lorelei said had been utter rubbish of course, James thought bitterly, bringing his hands up to cover his eyes. He didn't know why Lorelei even bothered pretending that Lily didn't loathe every fiber of his being, when it was so starkly obvious to everyone else that she did.

James had known for a while now that nothing ever _was_ going to happen between Lily and he. The epiphany had shaken him and he, in a last ditch attempt to sway her attentions had become rude to the point where _James _was even offended by some of the things he said to her.

There where several nights when James had trekked up to his dormitory, mouth agape in horror over what he had either said or done.

On some of these nights Lorelei had come up to James's bed and sat with him, sometimes merely sitting there beside him, sometimes talking to him, and even stroking his hair on the one occasion when he had become so overwhelmed with pathetic longing for Lily Evans and regret over his own immaturity, that he had cried.

He was always surprised when she came to see him after Lily and he had a disagreement, or full on brawl. After all, she was Lily's best friend and it seemed peculiar, to say the least, that she chose to come and comfort _him_ instead of Lily..

When he had asked about this, she had told him that Lily's suffering was so ridiculously self inflicted that Lily didn't deserve her sympathy. She admitted that his misery was also fairy self inflicted, but she wasn't entirely sure what to do about it, seeing as James's self inflicted misery usually stemmed from random and practically uncontrollable fits of attention seeking idiocy. James was not entirely happy with this analysis, but let it slide.

He and Lorelei had actually known each other for a very long time. The Hartwicks and the Potters were two of the more progressive pureblood families in Britain and spent a great deal of time together because of it. While Lorelei's mother organized political dinners, fundraisers, and benefits Lorelei would be deposited at the Potter Manor, where she and James would explore the countless hidden passages and tunnels that snaked through and under the the grounds of the Potter estate. James had learned early on, therefore, that Lorelei, much like her mother, needed to be in charge of something to function. Unlike Lorelei's mother, who engaged herself thoroughly in the workings of the wizarding political scene, without ever having real power, Lorelei gave advice to her friends. Although James knew all too well that Lorelei was usually faking her sheer confidence and all knowing attitude toward other people's problems, it was still selfishly reassuring somehow to know that she would never give up on him, even as her own life crumbled around her.

It was because of these past events that, when James heard the dormitory door creak open without the loud voices of his dorm mates, he assumed that it was Lorelei.

When he flipped over onto his back however, he was startled to see Lily's long sheen of dark red hair framing her face.

He shot up in his bed like a rocket, his eyes widening in surprise. He grasped around desperately for something witty to say to her, but was forced to settle on looking at her with a face that he was quite sure resembled a fish, gasping for oxygen.

James wasn't sure if he imagined it of not, but he thought he saw a slight softening occur behind Lily's eyes. Perhaps she had a soft spot for people _so _dim that they couldn't formulate sentences. He certainly seemed to fit into that category.

Finally, settling on letting Lily speak first, James settled back against his headboard, with a slightly strained, questioning look on his face.

She chuckled quietly before sighing and lowering herself down onto the smallest sliver of Sirius's bed she could muster, without falling off onto the floor. She turned her torso slightly, so that she was directly facing James.

"I... I just came to tell you," she began stiffly, "that... I'm... _Sorry _for how I... Raised my voice earlier," she concluded. James was trying his hardest to suppress a smile at how forced the half assed apology sounded. Luckily, he managed to swallow it down before she glanced up at his face.

"I realize that... It was...wrong," she managed to choke out, "wrong to take out my frustration out on you and I'm... Sorry." The look on Lily's face was utterly priceless as she spat out the final word of her apology. James couldn't decide if it reminded him more of a common facial expression made by Narcissa Black, or Remus eating a particularly disgusting Burty Bots Bean; the two were very nearly interchangeable.

Lily looked up at James from underneath her eyelashes, her face significantly more flushed than usual as she waited for him to respond. Unfortunately for James, Lily looking at him this way caused a sort of constriction to occur in his throat to the point that forming words was completely out of the question. He settled on nodding instead.

Lily sighed in relief, and relaxed slightly back onto Sirius's bed before continuing, "And then... there was something else I needed to talk to you about,"

James cocked a questioning eyebrow at her, hoping that by the time he actually was forced to vocally respond, he would have the power of speech back.

Lily drew in a deep breath before looking directly into James's eyes, all hints of reservation gone from her now determined face.

"Potter..." Lily began, "Why did you have a go at Severus yesterday?"

James felt his stomach drop. He was relatively certain that she knew something more about the situation than she was letting on and he was also fairly certain that he was _not_ interested in getting into the subject.

Instead of revealing any of this to her, James shrugged his shoulders casually and said, "Like I said Evans, he just gets on my nerves, is all."

James kept his vision trained on a spot slightly to the right of Lily's actual face, but he saw it all the same when she narrowed her eyes dangerously.

"Hmm, is that so?" Lily asked.

James shifted his weight nervously and nodded. Lily stood up and began to pace slowly about the room, in a casual, meandering sort of way. He couldn't help but notice that she somewhat resembled a tiger, feigning disinterest before pouncing at its unsuspecting prey.

"Then why haven't you had a go at him all term?"

"Other things to do I suppose," James suggested evasively.

Lily smiled in a way that can only be described as coyly, "Come on Potter, we both know that _I _know what went on with Severus, so why are we messing around?"

"If you know what happened with _dear Severus, _then why are you here, interrogating me?" James asked, rather grumpily, "I don't see why it matters anyway,"

"It matters, Potter, because... if what I've heard is true, I've been wildly unfair to you in the last few days. It matters because even though I still think you're an arrogant, self centered prat... you've still probably been a better friend to me than Severus ever was."

James's head snapped up in amazement to meet Lily's sincere and unfaltering gaze. He was very much aware of the fact that she was starring back at him without any traces of the familiar hostility.

Lily's soft voice was the first to break the silence, "Why didn't you tell me, anyway?"

James sighed, in no doubt whatsoever as to what she was referring, "I honestly don't think you would have believed me anyway, and... I guess I just didn't want to see your face. You always look so depressed after you two have a fight... I didn't want to be the one who caused that," he smiling cheekily, "Angry I can handle, but never sad,"

"So your plan was to just let me continue being friends with someone who tortures children?" she inquired, her voice slightly shaky, as she tried to recover from the apparent shock of hearing James express any emotion she did not find detestable.

"Uh, well I was hoping that you'd figure it out eventually," he said defensively.

"Yeah," she chucked rather bitterly, "I suppose yesterday was a pretty clear eye opener," She turned away from James then, facing the wall, and giving him the impression that she may have lost some of her composure. The quiet sob he heard quite adequately confirmed this.

"Evans, I-"

"No," she said, shaking her head, "I'm just pissed that I spent all of that time defending him when all along..."

"Evans," James began again, startled for the second time that day at the sudden loss of her tightly knitted stoicism, "Evans, I'm so sorry," He raised his hand, as if to reach out and comfort her, but then thought better of it, letting his arm drop feebly to his side.

"What could you be sorry for? I was the one who came up here to apologize to you. I had no idea that he had been doing that, I- I can't _believe_ that he would do something like that and still have the nerve to pretend like we're friends!" She lashed out on the last syllable, kicking at James's trunk savagely.

Despite the muffled curses now flying from the enraged redhead, James was relieved to see that she had now moved onto the angry phase of emotional recovery, one in which he was wildly more experienced.

After informing the affrontive trunk once more, for good measure, of its inadequacy Lily allowed herself to flop down alarmingly close to James, on his bed of all places.

"So," she said shortly, "Are we done here?"

"Ugh..."

"Marvelous," she stood up brusquely and marched off towards the door leaving James in semi confused amusement.

_Sirius's POV_

"And then she just marched right in here and actually _apologized_!" James said for the third time.

Sirius sat on his bed, observing James's excited pacing with a smirk. It had not been twenty minutes ago that he and Lorelei had found James downstairs, groaning about how he would never be happy again. It would almost be admirable how quickly James recovered from disappointment, if, over the years, it hadn't become glaringly obvious just how little was disappointing in James's life.

"And then she sat down right next to me, here on my bed before she got up to leave!"

Sirius stood up slowly and walked over to his best friend who was still practically jumping from one bed to another. "So, I'm gathering Lorelei told her what happened down by the Dungeons, then?"

James whipped around to look at Sirius. "Huh? Oh, yeah she must have said something... Wait a minute!"

James appeared to have just realized something as he hopped down from Remus's now very disheveled bed, "Why is it that you get to tell your little girlfriend all of our secrets anyway? What happened to 'A Marauders Mission stays with the Marauders?'"

Sirius scoffed, "Don't try to play it off like you're not friends with her too! And why are you complaining anyway? She just patched things up between you and Evans, didn't she? What's the problem?"

"The problem, Padfoot," James said, while sauntering towards Sirius with an obnoxious smile on his face, "Is that you are completely and totally whipped, and she could ask you anything and you'd tell her!"

"We're not even dating!"

"Tell me mate, did you just _run up_ and sell out your mates, or did she actually comment on not seeing you at dinner, first?"

"James," Remus interjected, in a warning tone, looking away from his book for the first time that night, "What are you picking a fight over? You and I both know that _Lorelei Hartwick _is not going to get us into any trouble,"

"That's not the point!" James insisted.

"Would you be so kind as to inform us as to what your point is, seeing as we are so clearly not getting it?" Sirius asked, his irritation bringing back traces of the carefully disguised aristocracy in his accent.

"Mate!" James groaned, "We're just worried about you is all-,"

"We?" Remus interrupted, his eyebrows raised.

"Fine! _Most_ of us," he shot a pointed look at Remus, "Are concerned that you're letting this girl get in the way of the Marauder life style,"

"Prongs, what are you _talking _about?"

"I don't like it!" James shouted, "You keep saying she's not your girlfriend, but I honestly can't imagine why else you would spend so much time with a bird!"

Sirius didn't respond, but merely raised his eyebrows, feeling very much like Remus.

"I mean, it's getting ridiculous! How long until you let something _big_ slip? How long until she, um, I don't know, notices that you can illegally transform into a _dog_? Do you really think she's a good enough mate to keep _that _a secret?"

Sirius's mouth quirked into a small smile, "Well, it certainly seems so, doesn't it?"

"WHAT?!"

"Are you honestly surprised? Prongs, she's one of my best mates,"

"No! _We_ are your best mates! She is... something else,"

Sirius snorted in laughter, "Why is that exactly?"

"Because, she's a _girl!"_

"Merlin, James," Remus cut in, "You sound about five years old, I hope you know,"

"I do not! Girls are different then blokes, it's as simple as that!"

"That doesn't mean you can't be friends with them!"

"No, of course you can! Just not best friends!"

"James!" Exclaimed Remus exasperatedly, shaking his head, "You are being even more ridiculous than usual, what's gotten into you?"

"Nothing!" He insisted waving his arms in frustration, "I'm just, I mean, I... nothing. I'm going to go down to the kitchens, want anything?"

"Uhh..." Sirius and Remus shared a confused glance before both shaking their heads.

"Right, fantastic," James said, in a falsely chipper voice before turning and walking quickly out the door.

"What the hell was that about?" Sirius muttered as soon as James was out of earshot.

"Isn't it obvious?" said Remus, jokingly, "he's obviously madly in love with you and couldn't suppress his jealousy any longer,"

Sirius chuckled and said, "Yes obviously... but honestly... what do you think set him off?"

"Oh, I don't know," Remus said, contemplatively, "he always gets a little miffed whenever attention is called to the fact that you share just as much, if not more, with Lorelei as you do with him,"

"Why though? He knows he's my best mate and always will be. Merlin, he can be such a woman sometimes..."

Remus chuckled, "Yes well, perhaps that's why you two get on so well,"

"You making a crack at my masculinity?" Sirius roared in a mock outrage.

"To the contrary," Remus insisted, "I was merely commemorating your finesse with the ladies,"

"Yes, well," Sirius said theatrically, sweeping a hand over his long hair, "if you need a hand, I'd be more than happy to set something up, Moony,"

"Thanks for the offer, but I have the distinct feeling that the kind of girls you could find to set me up with wouldn't be at all my type,"

"What are you suggesting? That I'm only acquainted with women beneath your high moral standards? What about Lorelei, you love her!"

"Of course I do, she's wonderful, but..." Remus looked up at Sirius and flashed a mocking smile, "I have this funny feeling you wouldn't be too happy if I started _dating_ her,"

Sirius felt his ears heat slightly and hoped dearly that his face was not turning red, "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, perhaps too quickly, "I would be... ecstatic if you started dating her,"

Remus snorted, "I'm sure. Come on, why won't you just admit you love her, and that you have for years!"

"Oh come on, Moony," Sirius groaned, "Not tonight, I'm not in the mood,"

"I don't know what would be so wrong with liking her!" Remus said, actually getting riled up enough to close his book, "She's smart, she's funny and to top it off she's totally gorgeous! Merlin, your mother probably wouldn't even hate her, with that blood line-"

"What would be wrong? What would be _wrong,_ Moony, is that it would ruin everything!" Sirius nearly shouted.

Remus raised an eyebrow.

"Not that that's a problem," Sirius said quickly, "I'm just saying that by telling her... telling her my...feelings...Hypothetically of course,"

"Of course,"

"Well... if she didn't return my... hypothetical feelings," Sirius said, anxiously pacing about the dormitory, "It could ruin everything that I have with her. Just imagine if one of your best mates, that you'd been platonic friends with since second year, suddenly came up to you and said, 'Remus, I've got to tell you, I'm madly in love with you, darling,'"

"Wow, thanks Sirius. I've got to admit though, I wouldn't exactly call our relationship platonic-"

"Shut up, Moony,"

"Sorry," Remus chuckled, "I couldn't resist.

Sirius walked over closer to where Remus was perched on the window seat and settled himself down on a bed, "Do you see what I mean though?" he asked, "If she didn't even like me back, then how could we just go back to our old casual friendship?"

"Hypothetically?"

"Uh, yeah. Hypothetically."

Remus chuckled in his dark way and then stared levelly at Sirius, "I'd say that you probably don't have anything to worry about. You're not as much of an asshole as you think you are, see. Lorelei knows that... and so does everyone else who knows you worth a damn,"

"Shit, Moony. And I thought you were joking before about our relationship not being platonic,"

"I don't fuck around,"

"No, I guess not," Sirius laughed.

Remus sighed again, settling himself back into a more comfortable position on the windowsill, "Why does the idea of your relationship with people changing scare you so much?"

"Well, I figure even if the majority of the people in my life don't like me, I still deserve consistency," Sirius joked, attempting to diffuse the serious tone of their conversation.

Remus smiled slightly, "What good is consistency when the relationship in question is confusing anyway?"

"It's not that confusing," Sirius argued, "We're just two people that... love and understand virtually everything about the other. We're just two people who like to be around each other all of the time because it just feels _better_ somehow..." Sirius looked at Remus quickly, in embarrassment, on the verge of blushing.

"Need a tissue?"

"Shut up. What's gotten into you lately anyway? Aren't you usually the compassionate one who enjoys your friends' romantic turmoil on some sick level?"

"It's true," Remus mused, "You and James are like my own personal soap opera. And give me a break, the full moon's coming up. I can be prat if I want,"

"You see? Consistent relationships, being a prat! There are just some things a man should be allotted when he's handed an awful life,"

"Our lives aren't _that _terrible,"

"No," Sirius said after a moment, "They could be worse at least."

Remus laughed, "That's the spirit, Pads! Imagine, we could have all of our present misfortunes _and _James's various personality disorders,"

"Damn, Moony, you are in quite a mood today, aren't you?"

**AN: Well, what do you guys think? Isn't Remus a feisty little bugger when it's his time of the month;) Reviews are better than Lily and James kind of/ sort of getting along for once!**


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: Hey everybody! Thank all of you SOOO much for the great reviews and PMs, I really appreciate it. I'm actually rather on schedule for this chapter, and I hope you'll all like it!**

_James's POV_

James walked briskly past the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy and pointedly ignored his cries for help as the trolls he was attempting to teach ballet beat him repeatedly over the head with their clubs.

James had been lying low since the argument of the previous night. He simply could not believe how out of hand the conversation in his dorm had gotten. What could he have been thinking, interrogating his best mate about Lorelei? He could not imagine something so completely not his business. On the other hand, Sirius _was _his best mate…

It wasn't that James didn't trust Lorelei, because he did. Immensely so. It wasn't even that he had any aversion to her personally. As a matter of fact, he enjoyed the time he spent with Lorelei Hartwick almost as much as the time he spent with Sirius or Remus, and perhaps more so than that spent with Peter. The fact still remained, however, that she was separated from the rest of his friends by a feature both tangible and exceedingly obvious.

Lorelei Hartwick was a bona fide woman on all accounts excluding her literal age. She was not only a woman but also a truly beautiful one at that, in both appearance and nature. Also, and perhaps most importantly to James, she had the uncanny ability to drag Sirius wherever she went with as little as one of her trademark, brilliant smiles that she tossed so casually over her shoulder.

If James did not know better, he would say that she was so universally charming that it was manipulative. But he did, in fact, know better. Lorelei simply possessed a level of charismatic ease that was unimaginable to anybody excluding, perhaps, Jesus freaken Christ.

She could brighten a room with her smile, make anyone seem welcome with her laugh, and beyond all of this, she was a genuinely kind and caring person.

This however, was on the outside. James happened to know a thing or two about Lorelei that made it fairly hard to believe that all of this could be true. Despite her best efforts to portray it otherwise, Lorelei's life was not perfect. Close, but not quite.

Although Lorelei's parents were well-respected members of the magical community and loved her very much, she hadn't seen them in over a year and a half. Despite the fact that Lorelei had a beautiful home in the north, she hadn't stepped a foot into it in years, happier to spend her holidays on the move, in exciting new places. Although Lorelei had once had two siblings, _had_ was the operative word.

No, James thought. Her life wasn't perfect, but for some reason it would cause her great pain if anyone knew it.

He knew, of course, because she and he were closer to siblings than friends. All of their time spent together as children had made them quite close, and James fully realized that this made it even more awful that he was being so pathetic about Sirius and Lorelei's friendship, but as with many things in life, he couldn't quite seem to prevent himself from acting like an idiot.

James huffed in irritation. He wouldn't mind in the slightest if Sirius were a good friend of hers, if it weren't for the fact that it shed a blinding light on the sad state of affairs that was James's relationship with Lily Evans.

For the first two years at Hogwarts James's morale had always been lifted after one of Lily's hearty rejections when Sirius would unconcernedly console him with the words, "What do you expect from a _girl?_"

After that however, Sirius seemed to become both very successful with and very fond of girls. Although he reassured James that the whole lot of them weren't worth the trouble, his reassurances lost their comforting effect on James when Sirius first became attached at the hip to Lorelei.

It was not the first time that Sirius had become so involved with some girl or another that he neglected his friends. What made the case of Lorelei so alarmingly different was not how Sirius interacted with his close friends, but how he treated _her_.

It had become the observed norm for Sirius Black to keep his female pursuits shrouded in secrecy; the proceedings of their meetings taking place in infrequently used classrooms, dungeons, and secret passages.

Even James, Remus, and Peter rarely knew who he was off with until the inevitable morning would come when a very angry girl would rally the support of her friends in throwing dirty looks across the great hall (it was a rule of Sirius's, after all, to never date another Gryffindor) towards a completely unaffected Sirius.

Sirius would then spend the next few weeks completely and totally with his friends; pranking, harassing his teachers, and picking fights with Slytherins.

Then, when the female population of Hogwarts forgot his previous transgressions, and they always seemed to, Sirius would again become mysteriously absent during certain parts of the day. This could go on for any time between a week and several months until, yet again, there would be a heartbroken girl sobbing out a story to her friends on how she 'Thought _she_ would be different.'

"Oomph!" James stumbled and nearly fell as he rounded a corner and ran directly into someone heading in the opposite direction.

"Merlin, sorry! I wasn't... watching where I was going... " He trailed off upon looking into the face of the person he had nearly concussed. Of course, it had to have been Lily Evans. Quickly dropping to his knees to help gather the library books now strewn about the corridor, James angled his face downward, in a desperate attempt to conceal his reddening complexion.

He sensed, rather than saw, Lily come down to his level and begin picking up her books. James finally chanced an inconspicuous glance at her from the corner of his eye and saw, to his chagrin, her attempting to hold back a laugh.

"Hey! Don't laugh!" James said, in mock indignance, his previous shyness evaporating with the aid of her smile, "And what are you doing with all these library books anyway? It's literally four days until the end of term,"

"I'm aloud to check them out over the summer. And I'm sorry," she chuckled, "I just don't think I've ever seen you so flustered,"

James rocked back on his heels, handing her the last book, "Well it's not every day that I so clearly display my idiocy,"

She grinned up at him impishly, "I disagree,"

James allowed for his jaw to drop in over dramatized offense, "What are you suggesting Ms. Evans? That I _frequently _act like an idiot?"

Lily also rocked back onto her heels before answering, "Hmmm... definitely more often than not,"

James nodded, "Well, I've got to hand it to you, Evans, you certainly never let on that you felt that way. Not even for a second!"

Lily finally let out her laughter, allowing her head to fall back and her eyes to close. It was a clear sound and James's heart leapt with the knowledge that he had been the one who had caused it.

James hadn't realized he had been staring at Lily until she waved a hand in front of his face, her amused grin back in place, "Hello! Are you in there, Potter? Planning on furthering my beliefs about your mental capacity, or are you going to stand up sometime today?"

James recovered quickly and sprung to his feet, offering a hand to Lily, who, to his surprise, took it and stood up.

They stood silently in the corridor for a moment, James grasping for something to say that wouldn't make him seem like even more of an idiot. He eventually blurted, "Uh, it's lovely weather we're having,"

Lily nodded earnestly, also having looked as if she found the prolonged silence uncomfortable. "Yes!" she agreed, "Yes, the weather's been perfect these past few days. I can hardly look out a window without finding myself down by the lake,"

"Oh yes! The water's been the warmest I've ever felt it! If Peter wasn't so bloody scarred of the Giant Squid I'm sure we'd all be making fools of ourselves, swimming in it constantly,"

Lily laughed, "Oh, I don't know," she mused, "Perhaps you would be liberating the castle! Although it may have been considered embarrassing to swim in the lake before, if the great James Potter and his loyal gang consent to do it, it would be considered perfectly acceptable,"

"Hmmm," James mused, "although I am relatively certain that you are mocking me-"

"Oh how keen of you,"

"-The way I see it," James continued, as if she hadn't spoken, "the only thing you're really accusing me of is being a highly successful trend setter,"

"You're right. I suppose who I _should_ be angry with are all of the easily impressionable students that make your trend setting possible,"

"Exactly!" James exclaimed, grinning, "Is it really _my_ fault if I just go about my day and the masses find some elements of this action both interesting and awe inspiring?"

"I dearly hope you're joking, Potter," Lily said, chuckling.

"And why is that?"

"Because I was just starting to think you were tolerable,"

James's jaw nearly dropped. He was quite sure now; he was dreaming. Next Lily would miraculously be wearing only light, summer robes and then, most likely-nothing at all.

But no, James realized. It couldn't be a dream, because if it were, Lily Evans would certainly not be walking away from him.

"Evans, wait!"

Lily turned back toward James as he jogged up the corridor, towards her.

"Where are you going? I rather enjoy your almost-compliments,"

"Oh, I thought I had better clear out before your over inflated ego caused your head to explode,"

"Ah, so you're leaving with my safety in mind," James said, smirking.

"Hardly," she responded haughtily, "I just wouldn't much fancy explaining to the rest of the Gryffindors and McGonagall why their favorite Quidditch captain won't be winning them the Cup next year,"

"You're confidence in me is touching,"

Lily gave him a sour look and turned to walk away again.

"No, wait! Evans!" This time James grabbed her wrist to prevent her from walking away, startling both of them. He quickly dropped it. "Sorry, I..."

Lily raised an eyebrow, waiting.

"I was just wondering whether..."

"Yes?"

"Are these civil conversations going to be a regular thing, or should I just assume it was a one time lapse in judgment?"

"By most people's standards, that wasn't even a civil conversation," she pointed out.

"Yes, but we have very unique standards when it come to each-other, don't we?"

"You have a point. I suppose as long as you continue acting 'civil' we can continue having 'civil' conversations,"

James's face split into a huge grin, "Brilliant. See you later then, Evans,"

Before he could make Lily regret her decision, James spun around and started walking in the opposite direction, feeling as though he could quite realistically be walking on air.

_Lily's POV_

Lily stood in the same spot where James had left her until he disappeared down the staircase to the sixth floor.

She was still in a sort of shock over what had just transpired between them. While they had been talking it had seemed like the easiest and most natural thing in the world. But it wasn't.

Lily Evans and James Potter simply did not have _conversations. _ Instead they communicated in different ways. Shouting matches, public rows, sneering asides, and even the occasional hair pulling were quite within their area of experience. A conversation however...

Lily though back on the interaction that had just taken place moments ago with awe. She and James Potter had had a nice chat about the _weather. _They had _laughed_ together. Several times. And to be perfectly clear, not _at _each other, which, after all, would have been far from uncommon.

She and James Potter had casually joked around as though they had been school friends for years. Lily tried to put her finger on exactly what had been so different as to make their interaction anything other than explosive.

'_The difference had been on both sides,' _she thought pensively. Whereas Potter's humor around her was usually at someone else's expense and was a tinge mean spirited, today he had been downright pleasant. The only reason Lily could think of to explain this was that he had been very surprised by their meeting, and perhaps a little embarrassed.

Lily smiled at the memory of his mortified face when he had looked up and realized that it had been she that he had nearly knocked to the ground. She had felt slightly embarrassed too, considering that their last encounter had been the awkward conversation in the boys' dormitory, just last night. Lily practically shuddered when she thought of that talk. She had cried yet _again _in front of James Potter. She had always prided herself on not being one of those girls who cried over every little thing and yet, there she had been, crying for the second time in one day in front of the last person on earth she would want to see her shed tears.

Lily had been half surprised when he hadn't laughed at her for her brief, if explosive, lapse in emotional collectivity. Perhaps that just illustrated how much James Potter had changed and how little she had noticed.

No, she corrected, shaking herself mentally: bullies didn't change. _James Potter_ didn't change.

But as Lily walked toward the Gryffindor Common Room, she couldn't help but notice that she was thinking less about how awful James Potter was, and much more about how attractive he had looked when his eyes crinkled and shone as he smiled at her.

**AN: Well what did you guys think? It was hardly a cliff hanger- I was in much too good a mood while writing this to do that to you guys:) Whatever's on your mind, please leave review so I know what you're thinking! **


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: Hey everyone! I hope you've all had good a good week! This chapter is Marauder bases, so I promise to update sooner than I normally would with some more Lily/ James action. Hope you like it!**

_Remus's POV_

"Remus, mate, we don't have to go. None of us bothered getting dates, anyway!"

Remus and Sirius sat next to each other in two of the best chairs next to the unlit fire while James sprawled across the intricate Persian rug, absentmindedly tossing a quaffle up into the air and catching it.

Remus shook his head; "You don't have to miss it just to run around with me in the woods for the hundredth time. Don't worry about me. I can handle one full moon without you lot babysitting me. I did before, you know,"

James caught the ball from the air before turning to Remus, "We don't do it because we don't think you can manage to stay out of trouble! We do it so you don't have to dread it so much,"

At lunch, a few hours earlier, Dumbledore had made the announcement to the Great Hall that the much awaited End of Term Party would be held on the approaching Sunday. Remus had let out a small groan of disappointment when he realized that he would be too busy transforming into a mindless monster to partake in what would otherwise have be a very enjoyable night with his friends.

"I said don't worry about it! Obviously I wasn't dreading it when I was being too thick to even realize that this would probably happen! Maybe I _should _dread it, if it's the only bloody way I'm going to remember!"

"Oh, come off it, Mooney!" said James, laughing, "It's not like you were going to just _forget_,"

"Right!" Sirius chimed in, "Get's halfway down to the Great Hall before he realizes he's sprouting whiskers." Sirius and James roared with laughter.

"It's not funny! I need to be more responsible about my... condition."

"_More _responsible?" Sirius chuckled, "If you were any more responsible that stick up your arse would be triggering your gag reflex."

"Seriously, Mooney," said James in a less joking tone, "you never forget _anything. _ There's no point in worrying so much,"

"James," Remus said impatiently, "we're not talking about the due date of some Transfiguration paper, we're talking about the night I, once a month, turn into a man eating creature of the night. I have every reason to worry. One slip up and I could seriously hurt somebody. I could _kill _somebody."

"That's what we're here for!" objected Sirius, "To remind you,"

"Or, at the very least, restrain you, should you ever start attacking innocent party-goers," James added.

"Hmm, all the same, I think you should go to this without me. I'll be fine,"

"All right, mate, but we're just going to make fools of ourselves without you around to keep us in check,"

"Naturally," Remus responded smiling.

"All right, then. Now that's settled, I'm going to go for a fly," said James, standing up, "It's too stuffy in here. Anyone care to join me? We could make a game out of it,"

"Sure, I'll come," Sirius said, standing up as well, "You coming, Moony?"

"No, I, uh... I think I'll stay here for now. Catch up on some reading,"

James and Sirius looked down at him for a moment, "You... _sure _you're all right mate?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Go on with you, before James explodes with pent up energy,"

As James and Sirius ducked through the portrait hole Remus let the smile he had been holding on his face fall away. Despite all of his friends' assurances, Remus couldn't help but feel guilty for forgetting his condition, even for a moment.

That, more than wanting his friends to wreak havoc on the rest of their peers, was what drove him to convince them to leave him this full moon. He shouldn't be able to forget and pretend that he was normal. He should have to feel every bone breaking and resetting in his body and he should have to have to do it completely alone if that's what it took for him to get it through his thick skull that he could never really be normal.

Remus dropped his face into his hands, rubbing his temples. A dull ache had begun to form behind his eyes as it often did a few days prior to his transformation. One night a month, people always said. Just twelve days out of the year. What was that really? But what most people didn't know was that it was much, much more than that.

In the days before Remus's transformations there was a certain set of symptoms that piled, day after day, on top of one another. On the first day leading up to the full moon, Remus would begin to feel a heavy sense of fatigue, making it nearly impossible to get out of bed in the morning and _completely _impossible to commit his attention to his classes.

On the second day, Remus would begin to feel incredible muscular pain all over his body, particularly in the places he knew his body would have to twist, stretch, and contort the most. The third day was always marked by the headaches. They throbbed directly behind his eyes, making light painful and sound agonizing.

Tomorrow would be the fourth and the final day, and Remus knew that he would be facing all of these symptoms along with his least favorite of all- an incredible, irrational rage that boiled inside of him, causing him to lash out at even his closest friends.

Then, of course, the actual transformation would come. Remus would make the treck down into the earth, one night a month, to transform into a monster. He would sit silently on the floor of the shrieking shack, the furniture too mutilated by himself to put to use, in complete silence. For a while there would be no change except for the subtle but oppressive worsening of his aching muscles and head and then it would all too suddenly begin. For the first hour or so after the moon's rising Remus would writhe on the floor, overcome by an intense fever racking his body with tremors and quickly coating him in a frigid sweat. His stomach would twist painfully, causing him to get up onto his hands and knees and dry heave every quarter of an hour. Remus had long since learned not to risk eating anything on the day of his transformation.

The second hour after the moon's rising was the worst. Mixed with the delirium of his fever, another sensation would begin to set in. It was as if every bone in his body had grown suddenly very brittle. They all seemed to be waiting for the slightest force to break them, and then they would begin to alienishly reset inside of his body. He could watch them move and bulge under his skin until they settled in a position that was wholly _wrong. _ This sight never failed to unsettle Remus, triggering another round of vicious nausea.

As a child, for his first few transformations, Remus would try to prevent this change for as long as possible by laying perfectly still in the wine cellar where his parents would tearfully lock him. He used to hope, to _pray_, that if he didn't move, if he were utterly _motionless, _the transformation wouldn't come. It was not long, however, before he accepted that that was impossible. If he tried to cheat the transformation for too long his body would begin seizing, shattering his bones with more violence and pain than ever before.

He had come to the conclusion, after several failed attempts to get past the seizures, that it was better to get this stage of his transformation over with as soon as possible. As soon as he felt the first signs of his bones' fragility he would summon all the strength he had to stand and would then begin hurling himself at the walls of his self imposed prison.

Fairly soon, every bone would be sufficiently broken, and Remus could feel his human consciousness slipping. At first, this promise of nothingness would be welcome, but then there was always the panic. He would wish that he could have held on just a moment longer to his humanity. Terror of _truly _becoming a monster filled his stomach and crept up his throat. That was always when he started screaming. Throughout the horrific pain of the transformation, he could always stay quiet, but something about that fear, the hot, blinding fear of never returning to his human body, of losing his mind, or of doing something truly unforgivable brought him to hysterics. But, eventually, this too would fade as his mind was swept away and replaced by that of a bloodthirsty, unrepentant animal.

This, however, was not the end of the ordeal. When Remus awoke, he was faced with an inexplicable sense of guilt for becoming what he had and, more potently, for having no memory of it. He was also so weak that he had to face the embarrassment of having James, Sirius, and Peter have to help him back into his clothes and hide his injuries.

They had gotten considerably better at preventing injuries in the first place, and Remus couldn't argue that their presence helped him overall. He liked that they could tell him exactly what had transpired in the previous night, and he knew that they would never sugarcoat something he did. Best of all, he liked that they treated his disease like an opportunity for adventure rather than something to cringe at.

The three teenage boys that Remus shared a dorm with for nine months out of the year knew, possibly, more about the stages of lycanthropy than any Magical Creatures specialist, and certainly more than his own parents. Remus had come out of the wine cellar only twice before he decided that his parents could have no part in what transpired there. The tears in his mother's eyes and the look of shame on his father's face had been the most painful part of the ordeal. From then on, he made sure to spend as much time as he could away from them so that they didn't have to be constantly reminded of what their son was, and made sure that there was no trace of the effects of the full moon left over in the cellar, though he needn't have bothered; from the night of his first transformation, his parents had never ventured there.

Having his friends confront him about his lycanthropy had been one of the best days of his life, once he realized that they did not plan on turning away from him. Having just a few people in his life who truly knew at least some of what it was like to be a werewolf was an enormous weight off of his shoulders. For the first time in his life he had people who he could talk openly to without the fear of making them cry of driving them to drink.

Despite this closeness, however, even the rest of the Marauders didn't know every detail of what it meant to truly be a werewolf. There were psychological elements to the transition that the other boys, of course, couldn't know without being in Remus's head, but that was not the extent of if. There were things about Remus that had shifted when he was bitten and never went away with the phasing of the moon. These parts of Remus were buried very deep, but he lived every day in fear that if he wasn't cautious, if he slipped up even once, the world would know how much one bite had really changed him.

As Remus ran a hand through his overgrown hair (he really shouldn't have let Sirius convince him to grow it out) he heard the clearing of a throat just above him. His head snapped up to see Lily looking down at him concernedly.

"Remus? Are you feeling all right? You look a little green,"

Remus straightened his posture quickly and forced a smile, "Oh you know me. Simply of a 'sickly disposition,'" he said mockingly, quoting what the divination professor had said of him. Lily smiled slightly but the worry did not leave her face.

"Well, at least let me cover your patrol tonight. You don't want to be up half the night if you don't feel well," This had grown to be the custom for the two Gryffindor prefects over the last year. Lily would cover for Remus when his 'sickly disposition' got the best of him and Remus would fill in likewise when Lily had a mountain of homework or, more often still, needed to calm down from something idiotic that James had just done.

Remus smiled gratefully up at her, "I would actually _really _appreciate that. Thanks a million Lily,"

"It's no problem," she said, waving it off and settling next to him in the adjacent chair, "Anyway, I was just helping out the two Heads with the time cards and it turns out you helped me out way more often than I did you,"

"Not a chance," Remus protested, "you're always covering me!"

"Nope," Lily said shaking her head, "I just saw proof of it. It looks like I've been taking advantage of our semi-friendship,"

"Semi- friendship?" Remus replied, laughing, "And all this time I've been telling myself that we were _actually _friends. How silly I've been…"

"No!" she said laughing, "That's not what I meant at all! I just meant that we never see each other outside of classes, homework, and prefect duties,"

"To be fair, that _is _all my life consists of," he reasoned.

"Don't be ridiculous, you're one of the _marauders, _aren't you? If I know anything about that, which I do, that gives you one of the most interesting schedules in the school,"

"You're overestimating our organization. There are no schedules. Just the impulses of two adolescent boys,"

"Two?" she asked quizzically.

"Oh, yes. James and Sirius. Peter is a follower at heart and I attempt to suppress my impulses,"

"What you describe doesn't surprise me at all," she informed him, shaking her head.

"Well, now I'm just depressed. Semi-friend indeed."

"Oh come on," she laughed, "You know as well as I do that we are the absolute _best _of semi-friends,"

"Yes, I suppose so," Remus said, grinning. "No one get's together over homework like we do,"

"Precisely! And nobody patrols the corridors like we do!"

"Yes! Our 'good cop, bad cop' is _textbook_!"

Lily's eyes crinkled as she laughed and Remus couldn't help but join in. As Lily's chuckles subsided she gave Remus an amused, calculating look.

"You know, your right. We really ought to try to see more of each other. How about you and I go to the end of term party together!" she said, excitedly, "that would be perfect!"

Remus's heart sank. More than anything Remus would love to be able to spend an entire evening with his friends and Lily but he knew that even that was too much to ask for.

"Oh, I uh… Lily, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to be going to that. I'm going to be-"

"Visiting your mother?" Lily cut in, almost amusedly. Remus's heart froze. Had Lily seen through the thin veil of lies that he had always relied on to cover up his frequent and lengthy absences from his classes? She certainly wasn't an idiot, after all, and it didn't take too many years of astronomy before someone could figure out a basic moon chart.

Remus's eyes snapped up to her face and saw her eyes widen in surprise at her own bluntness.

"I'm so sorry," she gasped, "I… I can't believe I just said that," She covered her mouth, her eyes still horrified at her apparent slip of the tongue.

"It's fine," Remus said slowly, attempting to look as normal as possible, "I know it's… odd how often I have to go see her,"

"No, no, Remus, I didn't mean it like that, I just-"

"Then how exactly _did _you mean it?" Remus asked more quickly than he intended.

"I," she started, looking taken aback, but also embarrassed by his tone, "I didn't… nothing. I didn't mean anything by it."

She smiled quickly at him then, hoisting the strap of her bag over her shoulder and standing up. Remus stood up quickly, attempting to close the awkward gap between them that his tone had created.

"Well, I hope that you enjoy yourself, this weekend. I know you'll have your hands full looking after James and Sirius without me there," Remus said in false cheeriness.

"Yeah, I suppose so," she said, half smiling, also trying to correct the uncomfortable moment "Well, tell your mother that I hope she feels better," She turned and walked briskly away, leaving Remus standing alone by the empty fire place for the second time.

As he sank back into the same armchair he had sat in for years, his heart was still pounding wildly in his chest. He had dreaded this moment for years. Lily Evans was one of the few people outside of his tight knit group of friends that he genuinely felt any desire to talk to. Was he doomed to never speak openly to anyone who didn't already know his secret?

Yes, he thought. And he had already known that really. With most of the people in Remus's life, he could make small talk. His assigned project partner in Arithmancy, Laura Jacobs, would receive a friendly smile in the corridors, a wave in Hogsmeade, and when they worked together in the library they would talk. They would chat amiably about the weather, the _next _Hogsmeade visit, and classes, but never of anything of substance. Remus was very experienced in steering clear of topics that might yield any information about him. If she asked about his mother: 'she was lovely.' If she inquired as to who his friends were before Hogwarts: 'some of the village children.'

Laura wasn't the only one who received this treatment of course, every person asked, except perhaps a Slytherin, would tell you that of course they knew Remus. He was intelligent, kind, a prefect, and, obviously, a Marauder. No one, however, could claim to know anything of importance about him other than his three dorm mates, perhaps Lorelei Hartwick, and Lily Evans.

Sirius, James, and Peter had worked their way bizarrely into his confidence, drawing him into their gang with alarmingly fast paced adventures, outings, and brotherly oaths made in the dead of night.

Lorelei had occasionally come along for the ride.

Lily Evan however, had been a much more gradual affair. They had quickly identified each other as the most kindred spirits in their year. Both were quiet sorts, but often with a secret wit pulling at the corner of their mouths. As their first year progressed, they grew accustomed to seeing each other studying, usually without the company of their more boisterous friends, in the library.

It was thanks to the Library that their friendship really bloomed. Without the absorbing energies of their respective exuberant roommates, they both had the time to look over their books and smile at one another when they caught each other's eye.

They would smile and wave to one another in the corridors, occasionally stopping to chat about some assignment of Flitwick or McGonagall's.

'_What are you doing with that odd friend of Potter's?' _Snape would sneer to Lily.

'_What are you doing with that ginger who hangs around Snivily?' _ James would ask Remus.

Each defended the other, and eventually the warring clans accepted the bridging friendship.

As Remus and Lily got to know each other better and better, they were pleasantly surprised to find that they had much more in common than their work ethic. Lily soon learned that Remus wasn't nearly as comfortable with James's behavior toward certain students as the other Marauders seemed to be, and this endeared him greatly to her. Remus soon discovered that Lily's experience of being a muggleborn student at Hogwarts had by no means rendered her politically docile, but indeed opened her eyes to some of the topics of injustice in the magical system that lay very close to Remus's own heart.

When they were selected to be the fifth year prefects for Gryffindor they were ecstatic, although not at all surprised in the selection of the other. Remus abashedly shared his fears of confronting his friends with his new position of power, and Lily had winked at him, promising that she would step in at every possible opportunity of getting Potter and Black in trouble.

In this manner, their fifth year patrols had passed happily. Although, if one were to look at Remus's closest friends as a representative sample of the Hogwarts student body, one would certainly be under the impression that the halls of Hogwarts were constantly teaming with nocturnal adolescents- that was not the case. Apart from his friends, who courteously agreed to stay in their own common room on the nights of Remus's patrol, the corridors were almost always quiet and uneventful. This provided the perfect time for Remus and Lily to talk, laugh, and confide in one another.

Remus had allowed for Lily Evans to become much too close to him, and learn much too much about him. Remus was, by no means, in love with Lily Evans, but if he ever did face losing her friendship he would miss her smiles and her understanding gaze, even if there were no possible way that she could ever _really_ understand.

Remus sighed, letting his face fall into his hands again. Would it really be so terrible to just… let her find out? If in one sudden moment, while reading a book or writing an essay on werewolves, Lily Evans put together the facts surrounding Remus's 'illnesses' would it _really _be the end of the world?

She had said herself countless times that she didn't entirely buy into the Ministry's methods of dealing with werewolves. Would someone as kind and caring and _good_ really care?

But no. There was no real way of knowing how someone might react. For all he knew, Lily might go running for the hills shrieking for his execution. She certainly wouldn't be the first witch to think it was an appropriate solution.

Remus rubbed his hands uselessly over his eyes, trying to wipe away, not for the first time, the exhaustion and heartbreak of the innumerable daily complications and worries he faced with his lonely and relentless condition.

**AN: Well what do you think? I know Remus was on the gloomy side, but, in my defense, it's the week before the full moon! He will not be a sad character forever.**

**Please leave a REVIEW below! I'd love to know what you're all ****thinking so far!**


	8. Chapter 8

**AN: Thanks for everyone's patience on this chapter! I'm sorry it took so long, but I have truly had two killer weeks with my ACT, the end of my quarter at school, and all of my college applications due. Yikes! So glad I could finally relax with a little writing! This is the longest chapter yet, and I hope you'll enjoy!**

_Lily's POV_

For the next few days, the castle was aflutter with the younger students finishing their end of year exams while the fifth, six, and seventh years made hurried and last minute preparations for an end of year party they knew very little about. Dumbledore was well known for taking a special sort of delight in surprising and delighting his students at the Halloween and Christmas feasts and the girls in the fifth year Gryffindor dorm were sure that this event would be no different.

"I bet it's going to be bloody _fantastic_," Marlene Davis said the morning of the Hogsmeade visit, "I'm just surprised Dumbledore is breaking with tradition. They usually aren't too big on adding new events in Hogwarts,"

"Well that's what's so funny!" Alice Smith said, "It was the Head Boy and Girl who proposed it to him, but apparently he was nothing but pleased about the idea,"

"That's just the thing," Lily said, tossing Alice a top from her wardrobe, "I think that Dumbledore is actually a lot more open to new ideas than most older wizards."

"That's true, all right," Marlene said, pulling on her shoes, "My grandfather, for one, would be _completely _appalled that we were allowed to wear muggle clothes down into the village,"

"I've met your grandfather," Lorelei mused, "He seemed to be appalled about most things."

Lily chuckled, pulling on her most comfortable walking shoes, "It is funny, from a Muggleborn perspective, hearing your lot _constantly _talking about how backwards and ridiculous muggles are, and yet so many purebloods are absolutely _terrified _of change."

"Even and especially if it's for the better," Alice added, nodding, "I think that a false sense of superiority of opinion might be an inherently pureblooded trait. You should hear the way Frank's mum talks. You'd think that she was the appointed voice on the correct way to do _everything_,"

"What do you mean?"

Alice stood up from the bed and struck a ridiculously regal pose, "'Doesn't Dumbledore know that _this _is the correct way to run Hogwarts?'" she said in a mockingly stuffy voice, "'I simply can _not _understand why the minister won't take action on the recommendations I send in my weekly letters!' I swear to God, I sometimes feel like I'm having a chat with Lady Catherine De Bourgh,"

"Who is that?" Lorelei asked over Lily's laughter.

"It's from a muggle book," Lily explained, still chuckling, "anyway, we had all better get down to the entry hall or else Filch won't let us out of the castle without a full body search,"

"I bet he'd like that, the slimy git," Marlene said shuddering.

When they reached the entrance hall Alice ran off to find Frank and Marlene went to find some bloke she had begrudgingly agreed to go on a date with, leaving Lily and Lorelei to stand in line together and wait for Filch to check off their names on his long scroll of parchment.

Sure enough, Lily saw Filch sneeringly give Marlene hard time when she reached the doors. The boy she was with said something to Filch with a dangerously sarcastic expression on his thin face. Marlene looked at him with surprised gratitude, and smiled fleetingly at the ground before they stepped out onto the grounds. The corners of Lily's mouth curved upwards. Sometimes Marlene could be pretty thick about who was and wasn't worth her time, and it looked like, for once, she had found one of the good ones.

"Who is it that Marlene is with?"

"Uhh… McKinnon, I think. David McKinnon,"

Lily nodded in approval, "He seems nice,"

Lorelei looked at her quizzically, "What gives you that impression? Have you ever spoken with him?"

Lily shook her head, "No, but he asked Marlene out, so we at least know he had good taste. I think a lot can be said about a bloke by whom he fancies,"

"Well then," Lorelei said laughing, "by that formula, quite a bit can be said about James Potter, eh?"

Lily glared at her and elbowed her friend in the ribs.

Lorelei laughed and threw an arm around Lily's shoulders, "Kidding! I'm just kidding… although…"

Lily drew her elbow back threateningly.

"Alright, I'm done," Lorelei laughed lightly, "Well, my dear, what would you like to do in Hogsmeade this fine, northern day?"

When the long path from the castle finally lead them past the Quidditch pitch and into the village, the pair set off for the post office, where Lorelei refurbished her supply of owl treats and parchment.

They also stopped by the robes shop, but upon seeing it flooded with other rabid girls Lorelei shook her head nervously and steered Lily, instead, to a store off the main street that had hundreds of spools of dusty but beautiful fabrics.

Lorelei smiled politely at the hunched over old witch who shuffled into the room when the bell clanged upon their entrance. While Lorelei talked animatedly with the small old woman, Lily wandered around the shop, running her fingers lightly over a glistening pile of dark purple silk. One of Lily's sweetest memories of Diagon Alley was when she had drifted into Madame Malkin's Robe Shop as an awestruck eleven year old, and first saw and felt wizarding fabric. The fabric she now let slip through her fingers felt like cool water and was almost too fluid to be corporeal.

Lily was pulled out of her sensory experience when the fabric was wrenched out from under her fingers.

"This too," Lorelei said, tossing the purple fabric onto the mountain of cloth she had piled on the counter in front of the overwhelmed looking witch. By the look of the sheer density of dust in her shop, this was the largest sale she had made in quite a while.

After Lily shelled over her half of the gold for the fabrics, they left the small shop, the wizened old witch grinning toothlessly from the doorway. As they came closer to the main street that ran through Hogsmeade, the thickening of panicky looking students brought her thoughts back to the amount of time left before the party.

"So, I hope you know that I have absolutely no idea how to sew, let alone make passable dress robes overnight,"

Lorelei grinned, shaking her head, "Don't worry about it. I'm really quite good, and I'll have Midgey and Dory come and help.

Lily had learned several years ago that Midgey and Dory were two of the many houselves that resided at the Hartwick mansion. Although in many circumstances the talk Lily had heard from other students about houselves over the years made her uncomfortable, she couldn't deny that the Hartwick's treated their servants very well indeed.

"Is Dory back from her honeymoon, then?" Lily asked as they passed through the doors of the Two Broomsticks, silently agreeing that a butterbeer was in order.

"Hmm? Oh, yes! We practically had to glue her to the portkey for her to leave, but I think once they got there they had a good time,"

"Where did they go again?"

"The house in Italy," Lorelei said, settling into a booth, "I only hope that they actually got out and about and didn't spend the whole time cleaning and gardening,"

Lily grinned, "What is a houself's marriage ceremony like, anyway?"

"Oh, utterly bizarre, and really quite telling," Lorelei said, signaling Rosmerta, "the whole thing is them promising loyalty, not only to each other and the relationship, but to their 'family.' By that, they mean us, the wizards, by the way,"

"Well, at least they're happy,"

"Yes. I really think they are,"

While the girls sat in the Three Broomsticks, it became more and more packed with Hogwarts students. Lily felt her stomach turn over when she saw the familiar, dark mop of hair that she recognized to be James Potter. She felt a wide grin spread across her face as she remembered their friendly talk the day before.

"What the bloody hell are you chuckling at?" Lorelei asked, trying to follow her line of vision.

She looked down quickly, toppling over Lorelei's butterbeer in her attempts to hide her quickly reddening face, "Uh… nothing. I just- funny thought…"

Lorelei looked at her confusedly but Lily offered no further explanations. She looked up covertly to see if her idiotic actions had attracted too much attention, only to immediately lock eyes with James Potter.

He smiled awkwardly at her and seemed to be waving at her before he redirected his hand and ran it through his hair instead.

"Um, I need to go,"

"What?" Lorelei asked, looking around for what could be so upsetting as to make her friend flee the scene.

"I just remembered, there's something I have to get. It's _really _important,"

"All, right. Let me just get Rosmerta-"

"No! No, it's all right," Lily said, pulling several coins out of her drawstring bag, "You don't need to rush. It's a tiny little errand. I'll meet you backa t the castle."

After Lily tossed the coins for her half of the drinks into Lorelei's bewildered hands, she made immediately for the door, hyperaware of Potter's eyes on her the entire time.

When she made it back out into the fresh air of the street, she took a deep breath, steadying herself. She had not actually been lying to her friend she told herself as she began walking. There _was _in fact something she needed to do and she would really prefer to do it alone.

Lily remembered first discovering the tiny little shop on her second Hogsmeade visit during her third year. Severus had been with her then and he was the one who had suggested getting away from the main shops that attracted most of the Hogwarts students.

He had pulled at her wrist and they ran down a short, narrow alley between two precariously balanced buildings, the cobblestones showing infrequently beneath the layer of snow. When they had reached the end of the alley and emerged onto a street paralleling the brighter shops Lily pulled her hand free and turned around to look back onto the wintery scene before her.

She could see, at a distance now, the students running about in the snow, burdened with their brightly colored packages, meant as presents for their loved ones. The high warbles of the carolers and the laughter of the young students was almost eerily separated from her now. Moments ago she had been _in _that scene. She had been surrounded by the laughter and the singing, and she herself had been a rosy cheeked student, kicking up snow into the air.

She wheeled around to face Severus, who still seemed mildly hurt that she had pulled her hand away. She attempted to brush this off and not think too deeply about the implications behind that.

"Why'd you do that, Sev?"

He frowned slightly, his thick eyebrows shadowing his already dark eyes, "What do you mean? We've already seen all of that rubbish. I don't want to be around _that _lot anyway," he had said, gesturing back to his peers.

Lily had bitten her tongue, holding back the frustration she held for her best friend. He always did this, pulled her away from other people and activity and brightness and into his own quite space. He would always look at her and smile conspiratorially then, as if he had done her some kind of favor. As if she abhorred the company of other people as much as he did.

Lily had sighed. "I want to go back Sev. I want to go back onto the main street where all of the other students are,"

"Why?" he groaned, "They're just being stupid! All of those shops are stupid- just pointless nonsense meant to entertain children!"

"We're thirteen, Sev," Lily said, impatiently, "So you'll forgive me if I decide to spend my day with people who don't pretend to be otherwise," She held her chin up and began to walk purposefully toward the light of the main street but was stopped short when Severus grabbed her arm. She turned around abruptly to tell him off but was caught off guard by his expression. It was pleading.

"Please don't run off, Lily," he said quietly, "We'll go and look in all of the shops and everything, and eat sweets and we'll go for butterbeer and all that, but can we just get away from all of it for a little while? Please?"

Lily sighed, but looked at him. She knew that where she longed to be around people and their laughing and singing and running and snow kicking her friend always seemed to place himself on the outside of such scenes, looking down at them and their free heartedness.

She felt a pang of sympathy for her friend then. She saw it in the way his eyes begged her and felt it in the way he clutched at her arm. The cold, lonely sensation that had rippled down her spine upon looking into a detached, happy scene was where Severus chosen, inexplicably, to exist.

"Ok, Sev," she had said quietly. She took his hand again and they walked down the side street, eventually having come across the very shop that Lily currently stood before- not with Severus, but alone.

She took a deep breath, and pushed the door open, causing a bell to ring,

Inside the store there were rickety stacks of boxes and oddly shaped objects, covering every available surface and accumulating on the floor. Although Lily was the only visible patron of the shop, the air was abuzz with little noises. A light ticking emanated from a rope, strung across the shop, from which hundreds of pocket watch like objects hung. From a Table near to the door came a light and regular thumping- disturbingly akin to a heartbeat.

"Mr. Cunningham?" Lily called out to the empty shop, "Mr. Cunningham, are you in here, somewhere?"

Lily saw a wizard start awake in his position on a dusty armchair in the back of the room. His worn, paisley robes had matched the ugly chair so well that it was no wonder that she had failed to spot him upon entering the store.

"Hulo?" He greeted, springing with surprising agility to his feet, "Do I have the profound honor of a customer today?"

He careened wildly around the stacks of merchandise, having to stop several times to prevent the tottering piles he disrupted from falling to the floor in his mad attempts to get to the counter before whoever had entered his shop could slip out again.

When he spotted Lily his thin features split into a wide smile. After quickly adjusting his thick spectacles he grabbed at her hand and began shaking it with vigor.

"Why, Ms. Evans! I was hoping I'd see you before the end of the year! Cutting it a little thin, though, aren't we?" he scolded, smilingly.

Lily grinned back at the exuberant man in front of her, "I know! I know, I'm sorry, I was going to come by the Hogsmeade visit after Easter, but all of the prefects got called to help clean up after Peeves exploded rotten Easter eggs all over the school,"

"Hmm, sounds like being a prefect is a real joy," he responded, mockingly.

Lily stuck out her tongue at him playfully as she ran a hand over the faded and cracked colors of an intricately painted box. Mr. Cunningham pulled a drawstring pouch out from a hidden pocket in his robes and rummaged around inside.

"Fancy the music box then? Care to take a look inside?"

Lily nodded and moved in closer to the table, which housed the old box, as Mr. Cunningham finally managed to pull what he was looking for from the pouch- a small silver key. He brandished it triumphantly and moved to Lily's shoulder, carefully inserting it into the tarnished keyhole and turning it gently.

As he withdrew the key carefully, a series of muffled clinking and grinding noises resounded from within the box as the lid slowly creaked open. A mysterious and wonderful melody began to bloom out of the depths of the machine, pulling at Lily's very insides. Something about the sound made her heart quicken with excitement, but also swell with nostalgic warmth.

Inside, powered by magically jolting clockwork, a brilliant scene unfolded before Lily's delighted eyes. Through miniature, wooden trapdoors the walls of a castle began to rise out of the depths of a dark, painted lake. From behind the walls of the accenting castle, four minute figures emerged. As Lily watched in amazement, the figures encircled the now fully formed castle and lifted their figurine right arms into the air, all clutching wands. At the same instant in the melody light shot from the four wands, one beam shinning red, the others green, blue, and yellow.

When the beams of light collided over the highest towers of the castle that Lily now recognized to be Hogwarts, the accumulation of light exploded, like a blazing and wonderful firework, and slowly settled over the lake and grounds, leaving everything glistening as the melody of the song began to fade and the castle and figures folded back neatly into place. As the lid creaked shut again and the lock clicked Lily blinked her glazed eyes several times before looking back up into the smug and excited face of Mr. Cunningham.

"It's… amazing," Lily whispered, surprised with the weakness of her own voice, "Were those the founders of Hogwarts, then? Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin?"

Mr. Cunningham nodded.

"And what was that song? It was… it was perfect," she said, not entirely understanding how her mind had conjured the word 'perfect,' but knowing that that was indeed what she had meant.

"The melody of the school song,"

"The school song doesn't have a melody," Lily corrected, confusedly, "Everybody makes up their own. It's complete bedlam."

"Yes," he chuckled, "That _is _a good way to describe it. The delightful magic of this box is that it plays a melody reflective of how the listener feels about the school. You and I, quite possibly, heard something completely different,"

Lily's eyes widened, "That's amazing, but," she hesitated, biting her lip, "It wouldn't be right for her then, would it? How could she feel anything in particular about a school she's never been to?"

Mr. Cunningham looked at her calculatingly for a long moment before saying, "How does your sister feel about any of the things you've gotten her from this shop?"

Lily dropped her eyes to the floor quickly and tried to push back the lump that was quickly forming in her throat. She blinked the water out of her eyes quickly before looking back up at the wizard before her. She could tell from the sympathy in his eyes that he had somehow come to a fairly correct conclusion about the question he had just posed to her.

"I just," she started, "I just want her to see that… it's not all mad,"

Mr. Cunningham raised an eyebrow quizzically at her.

"She doesn't understand," Lily tried again, suddenly desperately wanting him to understand, "She doesn't understand what magic really _is. _She thinks it's all ugly and strange and…she can't see it the way that I can; the way magic can be so, _so _beautiful, and all of the things here," she said, gesturing around the shop, "they're all like that. They all take magic and do something wonderful with it, and I… I just want her to see… that," she finished, lamely.

Mr. Cunningham looked at her again and the sympathy in his kind eyes was more evident this time. Lily looked away again, heat rushing to her cheeks.

"So," he said, breaking the silence, "You're trying to remind her that you're not a different person because of your gift? To show her that there are good things about what you are?"

Lily nodded.

"Well then," he said, clapping hands, "you'll take this for yourself. It's obvious that you appreciate it, and we'll just have to find something else for you to give to your sister,"

Lily smiled weakly, and nodded again.

After several minutes of Mr. Cunningham flitting about the shop, picking up objects, inspecting them closely, and then throwing them down again, he seemed to find something that fit.

"Here," he said, breathlessly, his hair disheveled and sticking up at odd angles from the attacks of his nervously twitching fingers, "I think this is what you need,"

He thrust out a small twinkling orb and she took it carefully in her hands. Lily brought it up to her eyes and stared intently at it. As soon as the objects within began to come into focus, the contents shifted, revealing a scene of a bright summer day. Two young girls waded into a stream, pulling the skirts of their dresses up past their knobbly, scraped knees. They kicked at the glistening water and shrieked in laughter when it splashed them. They looked happy.

"That's me," Lily said, smiling, "Me and Petunia, when we were kids,"

"That was made by the same craftsman that fathered the music box I showed you. You can see that it's similar magic- giving the possessor whatever he desires, whether it be a melody, a memory, of even a fanciful desire. This orb strictly shows memories,"

"Like a pensive?"

"Yes!" he said excitedly, gesturing wildly and pulling at his hair again, "But also no. A pensive is more… mathematical?" he tried to explain, questioning his own word choice, "With a pensive you sort of… dump a fat lot of nonsense into a bowl and pick out the ones you want, but with this, the memory finds you."

Lily nodded, turning the orb around in her hands, thinking.

"I was thinking about my sister. I was wishing we were like when we were… well, when we were like _this_," she said, gesturing to the orb.

Mr. Cunningham smiled slightly, "Well, is this a fit then?"

"Oh, yes. It's perfect," she said, placing it on the counter along with the beautiful music box.

While Mr. Cunningham rang up the two items Lily's mind drifted to the other presents she had brought home for her sister from the magical world. Always her heart would quicken as she thought of the item in her possession before bringing it tentatively to her sister's attention. She would wait, holding her breath for her sister's reaction, her fingers tightly crosses behind her back. Petunia's response to the gift was always the same- the sneer alike to every other expression that Lily received from her sister. She would call Lily a freak, storm off, and pointedly leave the gift behind her.

During her first year, she had borrowed a catalogue from Marlene and after carefully paging through it, ordered something for Tunney. She had been devastated when Petunia had continued to look at her with distain, even after Lily so obviously offered an olive branch, but then something miraculous occurred.

The partially unwrapped present disappeared. Neither of her parents had touched it, as she soon found out, and this left her with the hope that just maybe it had found it's way into Petunia's room. This tiny hope made it impossible for Lily to stop trying to reconnect, so year after year she would find a small something that captured what she wanted Petunia to love about magic. Year after year she would be disappointed, but she couldn't make herself give up this little one sided ritual. Perhaps it was selfish, but by continuing in this she could at least convince herself that it was not _she _who had let the relationship fail.

"There you are, then" Mr. Cunningham said, smiling brightly as he handed over the two brightly wrapped packages to her, "Have a really splendid summer. I look forward to seeing you next year,"

Lily grinned at him and waved as she exited the shop, making the old bell above the door tinkle again. As she walked back toward the main street she carefully tucked the two packages into her school bag, now vacant of books and parchment for the summer.

In her attempts to close the clasps of her bag, she wasn't paying very close attention to her surroundings and, as a result, nearly ran directly into a tightly knit group of people. Her eyes narrowed as she immediately switched into prefect mode.

Tapping impatiently on the shoulder of the very tall Ravenclaw boy standing in front of her she asked, "What exactly is so interesting that you lot are all stopping traffic?"

"See for yourself, love," he said, moving out of the way for her.

Lily didn't like the way his eyes had twinkled in excitement upon seeing her and thought, with a sinking of her stomach, that she knew exactly what she would find in the middle of the crowd.

Sure enough, as she elbowed her way through the disgruntled group of students, a familiar scene unfolded before her eyes.

James Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew stood at the center facing a group of familiarly sinister Slytherins, including Bellatrix Black, Antonin Dolohov, Lucius Malfoy, Rodolphus Lestrange, Mulciber, Rosier, Yaxely and Rookwood. The first thing that Lily really registered was that all of them seemed to have their wands drawn. The second thing she realized was that Potter, Black, and Pettigrew were ridiculously outnumbered.

With a deep steadying breath, Lily pushed her way into the circle, highly aware of the eleven wands now pointed directly at her.

**AN: I know! A cliff hanger! I'm getting so diabolical:) What did you think? Leave me a ****review below! I'd love to hear all of you're thoughts on how the story's progressing**


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